The history of sawing a woman in half

TL;DR: Sawing a woman in half was first presented on a public stage by the British magician P. T. Selbit, at the Finsbury Park Empire in London on 17 January 1921. Within months Horace Goldin had an American version with the woman’s head and feet in plain view, and the fight over who owned the idea ran into the courts. Later came buzz saws and Robert Harbin’s Zig Zag Girl (1965). It became iconic because it turned a simple picture, a person in danger and then perfectly fine, into a story every audience understands at once.

Why does this one illusion matter so much?

Ask anyone to name a stage illusion and there’s a good chance they’ll say this one. Magic historian Mike Caveney, speaking at its centenary, called it “the most influential and the most famous illusion” he knew of.

Here we stick to the history and what audiences see. We won’t explain how any version works.

Was there a sawing trick before 1921?

As a story, yes. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin’s Memoirs (first published in 1858) include a chapter headed “The Page Sawn Asunder.” In it, a conjuror named Torrini has his young assistant nailed into a chest, saws the chest in two in front of a Sultan’s court, and then produces two identical pages.

Treat it as a tale, not a record. The book’s own translator called Robert-Houdin “an author, almost a novelist,” pointing straight at the Torrini episode, and modern historians doubt Torrini existed at all. If you want the background on that slippery book, our post on who Robert-Houdin was covers it.

Who was P. T. Selbit?

Selbit was born Percy Thomas Tibbles in London in 1881. His stage name is his surname spelled backwards, minus one letter. Before the sawing illusion he wrote small handbooks for other magicians and edited a magic magazine.

He first showed the illusion privately to theatre bookers in December 1920, which is why a few accounts date it to that year. The public premiere was on 17 January 1921 at the Finsbury Park Empire in north London, billed as “Sawing Through a Woman.” Most historians who have weighed the competing claims credit Selbit as the first to put a sawing illusion on a public stage.

What did the first audiences actually see?

Selbit’s version was simple and grim. A woman climbed into a wooden box a little like a coffin, was tied in place with ropes, and the lid was closed. Selbit sawed straight through the box. When it was opened, she stepped out unharmed, ropes still attached.

The selling was half the act. Ambulances drove through the streets advertising the show, and nurses waited in theatre lobbies, as if someone might need them.

How did Horace Goldin change it?

Horace Goldin, a Vilnius-born magician working in America, presented his own version later in 1921. The big visible difference: in Selbit’s box the woman was hidden, while in Goldin’s her head, hands and feet stuck out of the ends of the box the whole time. Goldin argued that made his version the better illusion.

Goldin applied for a US patent in September 1921 and was granted patent 1,458,575 on 12 June 1923. He also went to court to protect the act, including a 1922 New York case over a film that showed it. Because he fought so publicly, Goldin was sometimes wrongly credited as the inventor, though most historians doubt his claim to have built it before Selbit.

How did the illusion change over the next century?

Here are the milestones we could confirm in at least two independent sources.

When	Who	What the audience saw
17 January 1921	P. T. Selbit, London	A woman tied inside a closed box, sawn through, then released unharmed
1921	Horace Goldin, United States	The same idea with the woman’s head, hands and feet visible throughout
Later (dates vary by source)	Horace Goldin	A large circular buzz saw instead of a hand saw
1956	P. C. Sorcar, BBC television	A televised sawing that left some viewers worried it was real
1965	Robert Harbin, Britain	The Zig Zag Girl: a woman in an upright cabinet divided into three, with her middle pushed off to one side
Later	David Copperfield	“The Death Saw,” with the magician himself under a giant rotary blade

The buzz saw raised the stakes: a spinning blade is loud and frightening, so the danger reads even from the back row.

What is the Zig Zag Girl?

Robert Harbin’s Zig Zag Girl is the version most people have seen in person. The assistant stands in a tall, narrow cabinet with her face, hands and foot visible. Two blades divide the cabinet into three, and the middle section slides sideways, so she seems to be standing in a zig zag. Then she is restored and steps out.

Harbin first presented it at a Magic Circle banquet and it reached a huge audience on Sunday Night at the London Palladium in 1965. (A few references give 1963, but 1965 is the date most sources use.) It was copied so widely that Harbin published it himself in 1970, in The Magic of Robert Harbin, a book limited to 500 copies whose owners were allowed to build the illusion.

Why did it become so iconic?

• One clear picture. A body cut in two, then whole again. No explanation needed, in any language.
• Real tension. Earlier stage magic often vanished objects or produced flowers. Here a person seemed to be in danger, and historians link its success partly to a public mood after the First World War.
• Publicity and drama. Ambulances, nurses, rival claims and lawsuits kept it in the papers.

It also has a less flattering side. Writers and historians have pointed out that it helped set the long fashion for a woman as the magician’s “victim,” and modern shows increasingly swap the roles or put the magician under the blade.

Where can you go from here?

Big illusions need a stage and a crew. To perform for a crowd yourself, browse our stage and large-audience magic or the wider general magic collection. For another classic stage image with a long history, read our history of levitation in magic.

Two free reads from our library connect directly to this story:

• Conjuring Patter, by P. T. Selbit himself: a short booklet of ready-to-use patter for popular tricks, written years before the sawing illusion made him famous.
• Memoirs of Robert-Houdin: the autobiography that contains the Torrini sawing tale. Read it as a great story first and a historical record second.

Sources: Wikipedia: Sawing a woman in half; Wikipedia: P. T. Selbit; Wikipedia: Horace Goldin; Wikipedia: Zig Zag Girl; Mental Floss: The strange history of sawing a woman in half; Mental Floss: The 1956 magic trick that sent BBC viewers into a panic; Invention & Technology: Sawing a woman in half; NBC News (Reuters): Magicians mark 100 years of sawing people in half; The Magic Circle: The Zig-Zag Illusion; Wikipedia: P. C. Sorcar; Memoirs of Robert-Houdin (1860 edition), translator’s preface and the chapter “The Page Sawn Asunder”.

Frequently asked questions

Who invented sawing a woman in half?

Most historians credit the British magician P. T. Selbit, who first presented it on a public stage at the Finsbury Park Empire in London on 17 January 1921. Horace Goldin introduced a different American version later that year and fought hard in court over the idea, so he is sometimes wrongly named as the inventor.

What is the difference between Selbit’s and Goldin’s versions?

In Selbit’s original, the woman was hidden inside a closed box while it was sawn. In Goldin’s version, her head, hands and feet stuck out of the ends of the box and stayed in view the whole time.

Who created the Zig Zag Girl?

The British magician Robert Harbin. He first presented it at a Magic Circle banquet and showed it on television in 1965, and in 1970 he published it in a limited book of 500 copies.

Will you explain how the sawing illusion is done?

No. We cover the history and what audiences see, but the methods belong to the people who build and perform these illusions.