Many magicians are known for their vanishing acts, but in this news development, it’s the magician’s furniture that went missing. Harry Houdini’s New York home is up for sale, and after the first open house, the performer’s parlor bookcase seemingly disappeared. After a little digging by John Cox of the Wild About Harry blog, it turned out the furniture was moved to another property. Now, it may at last have a new owner.
Over the holiday weekend, Cox shared that the one and only David Copperfield is trying to acquire the bookcase. Copperfield already has a large portion of Houdini’s books in his International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts, located in Las Vegas. The magician has told Luis de Matos that “We’re trying to get the cabinet from his house that was just discovered, so the cabinet…the bookcase can be reunited with his books. Wish me luck with that. We’ll see what happens.”
There would certainly be a nice poetic justice to the bookshelf and its former contents being reunited, especially if they’re open to the public view. Fingers crossed!