![]() This volume gives Bess Houdini the space and chance to speak.” It behooves us all to read and breathe life into this effort. For Bess shouldn’t be relegated to being another invisible woman standing in the shadow of the great artist or genius. In her author’s note, Schmidt explains her research approach to studying the Houdinis and her creation of Bess Houdini’s “state of mind, perspective, and experience” through her poems as “an expansion of the biographical fact.” She further explains, “It is my hope that these poems bring Bess from the margins to the center of the narrative of the great Houdini. Following his unexpected death, Bess Houdini attempted many times to restart her career, as well as to connect with her dead husband through séance. Whether they both believed that one could communicate with those who have died, I’m not sure. What I was told is that Beatrice and my grandmother shared a strong interest in things spiritual. It read: To My Friend, Julie LaSalle Stevenson, Best Wishes, Beatrice Houdini. Harry and Beatrice fell in love, and on June 22, 1894, the couple started a new act as husband and wife. Not just any book, but one that was inscribed by Mrs. Harry was an unknown magician and Beatrice was singing and dancing as one of the Floral Sisters in West Brighton Beach, New York. The collection opens with the biography of Bess Houdini, a class magician in her own right, but sidelined as her husband’s helpmate as his career took the limelight. It was magic at its best when Harry Houdini met Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner. ![]() SUNY New Paltz Distinguished Teaching Professor Emerita Jan Zlotnik Schmidt’s poetry chapbook Over the Moon…Gone: The Vanishing Act of Bess Houdini brings new light to the complicated life of Bess Houdini and gives voice to this stunning and admirable woman. WILHELMINA BEATRICE HOUDINI,BESS Houdini,1876-1943,wife of Harry Houdini - 13.76. His family immigrated to America in 1878, and Houdini began performing at the age of nine with a trapeze act, then magic and, in 1893, began experimenting with the escape arts. ![]() He was born Erich Weiss in Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, the son of a rabbi. Over the Moon…Gone: The Vanishing Act of Bess Houdini Harry Houdini was Spiritualism's greatest antagonist.
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