TLS, one page, 8 x 10.5, personal letterhead with engraved portrait, June 4, 1912. Letter to Boston area magician Edwin Fay Rice, in full: "Your letter with enclosures to hand and hasten to answer, as I am now trying out a new Invention of mine, which I will produce in Europe, and which I have all reason to believe will be the greatest sensation I have ever created. I found that Blitz plate and enclosed you will find a few of the cards printed 'therefrom.' I shall thank Mr. Marston personally, but what I would like to have had was the 'act.' When I get time will pluck up courage to ask for same. I shall be in New York until August 5th when we sail for Germany, and expect to be gone one year. Nothing else for the present with kindest regards best wishes to both Mrs. Rice as well as yourself in which Mrs. Houdini joins me I remains sincerely your friend." In fine condition, with light offsetting in the lower left from the image in the upper left. Accompanied by an original 'Houdini, King of Handcuffs' mailing envelope addressed to a different recipient.
The “new invention” to which Houdini is referring is his famous ‘Chinese Water Torture Cell.’ Constructed of a large steel-and-mahogany tank with an inch-thick plate-glass front, the cell was filled with water and an upright metal cage was placed inside. With his ankles fastened and secured in stocks, Houdini was then lowered into the tank upside-down, the top cover shut and padlocked, and a cabinet wheeled around the tank to hide the struggling magician. Two minutes later, a soaked Houdini emerged from behind the cabinet to a bewildered audience. On April 29, 1911, Houdini gave a single performance of the trick as a one-act play in Southampton before an audience of one; an ingenious maneuver that allowed him to file a copyright for the stunt in August of 1911, legally prevented imitations without explaining how the trick worked. The ‘torture cell’ trick, which Houdini claims “will be the greatest sensation I have ever created,” was first publicly shown at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912. The curator of the Boston Public Library, Edwin Rice was a magician, book collector, and friend of Houdini who wrote articles about magic that were published in 'M-U-M,' the periodical for the Society of American Magicians, whose motto was 'Magic-Unity-Might.'
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