Book Review: Wonders Never Cease

Wonders Never Cease

If I had any doubts about the power of the supernatural, they disappeared into thin air on November 11, the night author Bill Miesel presented his biography of magician Harry Kellar (1849-1922) to Kellar’s family. The date, plucked from the calendar like a randomly selected card, was picked more or less for the convenience of the family.  The room at Porter’s Restaurant in Erie, Pa., grew quiet as Miesel read the opening line from his book, Kellars Wonders (Mike Caveney’s Magic Words, 2003).

"November 11, 1918 will be forever remembered as the day the Armistice was signed, bringing an end to the First World War,” Bill began. “The same day exactly one year earlier holds no such stature in world history, yet it does mark a significant event in the history of conjuring. November 11, 1917 also marked the night of Harry Kellar’s final appearance on stage as a magician."

It was on that same night 86 ago that New York City’s Hippodrome Theatre hosted a show for the benefit of the families of servicemen who went down with the troop ship Antilles, torpedoed by a German U-Boat.  The master of ceremonies, Harry Houdini, cajoled his old friend into coming out of retirement to perform his illusions one last time. At the end of Kellar’s performance, the cast showered him with chrysanthemums and the crowd of 7,000 rose to sing Auld Lang Syne.  Kellar later told Houdini it was the proudest and happiest night in his life. 

The same could be said for Bill Miesel, who spent more than 30 years researching the life of Erie native Harry Kellar, widely acknowledged as the dean of American magic in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Kellar traveled across five continents entertaining audiences in hundreds of cities from Capetown to Calcutta, from Peking to Poughkeepsie, while Miesel’s journey began in the basement of the Erie Book Store.  It was there, in 1949 that the Cathedral Prep student discovered a slim, ghostwritten autobiography of the famous magician.  Proprietor Glenn Cantrell sold him the book -- now worth about $800 -- for $5.

When Miesel later discovered that no other biography existed – Houdini had intended to write one in his retirement but died of a ruptured appendix before he got the chance – he knew it would be up to him.

Searching for illusive details became an obsession, and by 1993, when he began writing his book, Miesel had accumulated thousands of facts, playbills, and a timeline of Kellar’s early career borrowed from a rare promotional flyer.  Then, on a visit to the library at Ohio State University, Miesel stumbled upon a microfilm file of The New York Dramatic Mirror, which listed Kellar’s tour dates from 1889 until 1908 when he retired and passed the mantle of magic on to his successor, Howard Thurston.  The author tracked down reviews from newspapers in every major city where Kellar was known to have performed.  It is these firsthand accounts, many reprinted in their entirety, that provide the backbone for the book.  The lengthy articles can be tedious at times, but they provide a fountain of new information for magic historians.

Bill Miesel himself is respected in magic circles around the world as a magic historian and a creator and publisher of card tricks, having invented several hundred of his own.  His work can be found in magic magazines and anthologies, and in Precursor, a newsletter for serious close-up magicians he has published for 20 years.  

When David Copperfield learned that a biography of Kellar was in the works, he sent word from China that Bill and his co-author and publisher Mike Caveney were to have complete access to everything in his personal archives, located outside of Las Vegas.  Copperfield’s collection includes Kellar's personal scrapbooks from the earliest years of his career, and richly detailed correspondence between Houdini and Kellar.  Photos of Kellar’s Los Angeles mansion and other documents are from the collection of Harry Kellar (Ted) Blakely, Kellar’s great-nephew in Erie. 

At the same time Bill was working on his manuscript, magic publisher Mike Caveney and his friend George Daily were negotiating the purchase of a multi-million-dollar magic collection from the Egyptian Hall Museum.  The materials contained in this legendary archive include engravings, photos, documents and posters. Rare Kellar lithographs command five figures and up, so seeing 45 of them all in one place in the book’s center section alone is worth the price of the book. Jim Steinmeyer, a designer and creator of stage illusions for Doug Henning, Siegfried & Roy, David Copperfieldand Lance Burton, served as technical editor for the book.

Released in November at the annual Los Angeles Conference on Magic History, Kellar’s Wonders was hailed as the largest work ever devoted to a magician’s life.  The comprehensive volume weighs nearly 6 lbs.

Turning the pages is like attending a magic show in an old vaudevillian theatre, as layer upon layer of the illusionist’s career are revealed from behind richly appointed curtains.  Kellar, incidentally, is believed to be the model for L. Frank Baum’s wizard in the Wizard of Oz. 

Best known for his levitation of Princess Karnac, The Blue Room, vanishing birdcage, and a Victorian-era robot called Psycho, Kellar perfected illusions he had seen performed by others at the London’s Maskelyne’s Egyptian Hall.  Sometimes he bought the rights; sometimes not.

Like many magicians in his time, Kellar also used the stage as a platform to debunk the spiritualists, including the Fox sisters from nearby Hydesville, New York.  Always a consummate storyteller and skilled mechanic, Kellar’s greatest gift was his unique style of presentation.

The showman returned to his hometown many times, performing at the Park Opera House, located next door to the apothecary shop he purportedly blew up by accident at the age of 11, prompting this druggist’s apprentice to hop a freight train and seek his fortune elsewhere.

The Kellar biography chronicles fortunes won and lost, harrowing shipwrecks, brushes with bandits, marriage to a beautiful Australian cornet player, and audiences with queens, sultans and emperors.  Still, even after 584 pages, Kellar’s personal life escapes me.  I have to remind myself that this is a book about a magician, after all, and the conjurer reveals only what he wants you to see. 

Lisa Gensheimer is a documentary producer and writer who discovered the power of magic at the age of 14, arranging old books at the public library.

This review is previously published and is reprinted here with permission from the Erie Times News.