This is perhaps a topic that few people think about, and, I imagine, fewer discuss, for I believe I have not seen it discussed before. And as far as a topic being subjective goes, well, it is hard to choose one, in the magic-history field, that is more subjective than this.
But I just noticed one or two posts on the Genii Forum regarding Harry Houdini, and it kind of got me to thinking. To those outside the Erdnase world, it probably appears that the S.W. Erdnase authorship issues have received a lot of research. But in real-world terms, it has gotten relatively little–almost none, I believe, as such things go. But Houdini has been placed, not just under a microscope, but under a scanning electron microscope.
It makes the Erdnase search look like the work of some kind of elite group (although each member of the group is just about 100 percent independent of everyone else), the members of which have stumbled upon one of magic history’s real mysteries and have done some things that might actually be leading to a discovery of (or confirmation of) who S.W. Erdnase really was, and possibly the discovery of proof that would satisfy everyone.
I am not trying to blow a thunderstorm over the picnic that the Houdini people are engaged in. I myself went through a phase in which I had quite a bit of respect for Houdini as a figure in magic history. But I think that the legend has overtaken the facts, and the whole mythos has a life of its own. I suppose that more than 90 percent of adults in the United States could say that Houdini was a magician, or an escape artist. But I suppose that less that one tenth of one percent has ever heard of Erdnase.
My own impression is that Houdini research is easy. There is, even now, an enormous amount of semi-unknown information about Houdini, which even a little research will uncover. For instance, there are countless Houdini letters out there, and each time one turns up, it probably has the makings of a long discussion and an article here or there. Then there is the fact that Houdini has a lot of relatives, and it seems as though each one has his or her own “take” on the whole Houdini situation.
Well, I’ll revise the foregoing. It may be that some Houdini research is difficult. But it is typically hard to tell which Houdini research was the result of skill and ingenuity and intelligence and knowledge and time and work, and which was the result of normal collecting activity and just some normal, easy poking-around. And even if it involves rummaging through archives, and such–like at the Library of Congress, or the American Museum of Magic–well, sorry, but the bottom line is that that sort of work is largely a matter of going through the motions.
Hey, I am not really knocking “easy research.” That is really what a lot of what I have done is. A lot of my card-game booklet research has fallen into that category, as well as a lot of my Professor Hoffmann research. But I kind of know the difference. And if you look at the Edwin T. Sachs “date” information on this very blog, well, I think that was the result of difficult research. On the other hand, the Edwin T. Sachs “points and variants” post was the result of easy research. The post on Edwin T. Sachs and the Thames Hare and Hounds, well, pretty easy, but probably quite time consuming to research and write–but I get bonus points because it’s a subject that even now basically no one knows anything about and it’s pretty interesting, and maybe of some importance, though unfortunately Sachs as a person seems largely ignored these days.
Also, I am very sorry to say it, but some–maybe a lot–of what passes for magic-history and scholarship these days is really, well, “unsatisfactory” is probably a nice way of putting it. But any kind of candid discussion of such issues is probably not likely to make one any friends.
—Tom Sawyer
September 3, 2012
The Armchair Bibliographer 