INSCRIBED BY LEGENDARY HARRY HOUDINI, FIRST EDITION OF ELLIOTT'S LAST LEGACY, EDITED BY HOUDINI, FEATURING THE SECRETS TO OVER A HUNDRED MAGIC TRICKS

(HOUDINI, Harry) ELLIOTT, James William. Elliott's Last Legacy; Secrets of the King of All Kard Kings… Edited by Harry Houdini. New York: Adams Press, 1923. Octavo, original red cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box.

First edition of famed magician Dr. James Elliott's posthumously published classic, containing the secrets to over a hundred magic tricks, edited by Houdini after Elliott's death in a wonderful tribute by Houdini to his fellow magician, inscribed: "Best wishes Houdini" with his bold flourish.

This first edition of Elliott's Last Legacy, edited by Houdini, was published under his supervision after the death of his friend and fellow magician, Dr. James Elliott. Trained at Harvard, Elliott then studied at Bellevue in New York City, "which brought him in contact with New York magicians… He was especially famous for a move he called "Backhand Palm (which later became known to magicians as the Back Palm)." Otto Maurer, proprietor of a Bowery magic shop showed the trick to both "Elliott and Harry Houdini and each of them began performing the maneuver. To Elliott goes the honor of refining it" (Steinmeyer, Last Greatest Magician). That trick is explained herein as "Invisible Card Reversing ('Back Palming Simplified')," along with the secrets to over a hundred magic tricks (several by Houdini), including: "The Elliott Method of Card Marking," "Money Melting," the "Triple Trunk Illusion" and much more. Many considered Elliott "the finest manipulator of playing cards of his time" (Dead Conjurers).

In Houdini's Introduction he recalls his first meeting with Elliott: watching him handle cards "with the dexterity that can only be acquired by a passionate love of magic and years of training." Houdini contests Elliott's view that "he was the first" to perform the Back Palm, but insists there was no hard feeling over its authorship. "It was simply a battle of two men, ardent admirers of skill, who thought the axis of the world was a pack of playing cards around which the magicians of the earth circumnavigated, or should." In 1920 the gravely ill Elliott wrote Houdini to ask for help in publishing this work. At Elliott's death, Houdini writes he immediately "took full charge of this book… if there ever was a magician who had given his whole life for Magic, it was James William Elliott." With an introduction and the essay, "Elliott Introduces a 'Disciple of Versatility,'" by Houdini. Illustrations by Oscar S. Teale. Compiled by Clinton Burgess, with his essay, "Elliott's Personality." "Eulogium" by Dr. Ezra Lee Buckey. With many in-text illustrations. Owner gift inscription.

Only a few spots of soiling to interior, light wear and soiling to cloth. An extremely good inscribed copy.