Miracle Mongers and Their Methods

Houdini on the fire eaters, sword swallowers, human ostriches, strongmen and poison-proof performers of history, and how their seemingly impossible feats were really done.

What’s inside

1. Fire worship and fire-eating — heat resistance, the Middle Ages, Navajo, fire-walkers of Japan and Fiji
2. Early fire-eaters — Richardson, De Heiterkeit, Robert Powell, Dufour, 1667–1794
3. Fire-eaters of the nineteenth century — the Incombustible Spaniard, Josephine Girardelli, Chamouni the Russian Salamander
4. The master: Chabert — 1792–1859
5. Fire-eating magicians — Ching Ling Foo, Chung Ling Soo, the Salambos, the twilight of the art
6. The arcana of the fire-eaters — old formulas and published explanations of the classic fire feats
7. The science of heat resistance — the spheroidal condition of liquids, early fire-fighting, what the body can endure
8. Sword-swallowers — Cliquot, Delno Fritz, Edith Clifford, Victorina
9. Stone-eaters, frog-swallowers and water-spouters — Francois Battalia, Bosco, Blaise Manfrede
10. Defiers of poisonous reptiles — snake handlers, Jack the Viper, antidotes
11. Strongmen of the eighteenth century — Thomas Topham, Joyce, Barsabas, the Italian Female Samson, Belzoni
12. Contemporary strong people — Louis Cyr, Sandow, Lulu Hurst the Georgia Magnet, the dime museums

Harry Houdini, 1920 · E. P. Dutton & Company. Complete 265-page PDF. Free to download: check out at $0 and the file arrives by email and on your order page.

This classic is in the public domain. Scans come from library copies, so expect the odd stain or stamp of an old book.