Name: Hiding the Elephant
ISBN: 9780786714018

Jim Steinmeyer

The author delves deeply into Harry Houdini's greatest illusion, tracing every aspect of this fascinating story, including the magicians who were his mentors, to uncover the secret of how he made an elephant disappear before a stunned audience. Reprint.

How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

Hiding the Elephant

Kali Nichta

This is a wonderful history of the high points of stage magic, centering around the early 1900s, within a framework of explaining how Houdini vanished an elephant on the stage of the Hippodrome. Woven throughout are real-life stories of intrique, espionage, jealousy, creativity and love (of magic) - along with the secrets of how some of the most memorable stage illusions actually work. 

Very readable and edifying.

Hiding the Elephant How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear