In a way, these can be read as if they are Houdini's own personal blog - The Handcuff King's blog. The columns are filled with wonderful tidbits about variety performers of the day, and also contain many revealing opinions and slice-of-life gems about Houdini himself. Siberian Chain Escape, The Japanese Thumb Tie, Escape from a Chair Tie, The 20th-Century Escape, Escape From a Sack Trick, Escape From a Chair Trick, and The Dangerous Rope Tie Trick.When Houdini first toured Europe during his early fame as The Handcuff King, he penned a regular column for the New York Dramatic Mirror. The contents of the book are: The Great Handcuff Trick, Escape From a Safe or Vault, The Vanishing Assistant, The Crack Marksmen, The Marvelous Levitation Act, The Excelsior Rope Tie, The Wonderful Trunk Escape, The Escape From 75 Ft. Some of the interesting advertisements on the inside front and back covers are for "Magic cards" (DeLand marked decks), "The magician's box of tricks" (a $1 magic set), and "Card miracles, containing 12 sets of magic cards, with which it is possible to perform a complete act in magic, no skill, no palming, no practice, no apparatus". Johnsons Smith's book reprints typically had a catalog section in the back that, in many cases, doubled the overall size of the book, and are as interesting to peruse as the book itself. There is also an article on "Locks, Their Construction How to Pick Them, Lock Breaking," which appears to have been added in later, perhaps in the late 1930's or early 1940's, while the earlier part of the book was written in the early part of the century. Most likely this book was sold merely to satisfy buyer's curiosity, rather than to actually teach them how to be a "Handcuff King and Mystery Man". However, the effect of the Siberian Chain Escape is clearly explained and was worth the price of theīook if one did not know it already.
Some of the explanations suffer from an almost humorous lack of details, such as the Crack Marksmen Act, which suggests that, in the effect of disrobing the assistant with a rifle, shooting birdshot at the assistant eliminates all danger. All of the explanations are brief, and suffer from a lack of illustrations. It could be argued that this book is one of many that "tells the reader how something is done, not how to do it". Secrets were sold separately by magic companies as early as the 1920's. In book form, this seems to be a Johnson Smith original. It was originally published by the Johnson Smith Co., which published a large number of "pulp" reprints of older books in the pre-war years of the 20th century.
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