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Gr 6 Up—Harry Houdini is best remembered as a magician and escape artist, but he also spent more than half his life tirelessly investigating mediums and séances—charlatans in disguise. Noyes's narrative blends the history of the spiritualism movement in the early 20th century with a biographical account of Houdini. Early in Houdini's career, between 1897 and 1899, he and his wife Bess performed as mediums and mind readers, but he later wrote that he regretted "trifling with the hallowed reverence which the average human being bestows on the departed." Infl...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Spiritualist movement swept the nation. Noyes (Ten Days a Madwoman, rev. 1/16) uses Harry Houdini's attempts to discredit the movement as her entry point into this intriguing phenomenon. Starting with a population reeling from loss of life during a period of high mortality and large-scale events such as the Civil War, WWI, and the flu epidemic, Noyes sets the context for a vast...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Spiritualist movement swept the nation. Noyes (Ten Days a Madwoman, rev. 1/16) uses Harry Houdini's attempts to discredit the movement as her entry point into this intriguing phenomenon. Starting with a population reeling from loss of life during a period of high mortality and large-scale events such as the Civil War, WWI, and the flu epidemic, Noyes sets the context for a vast...Log In or Sign Up to Read More