Magic
Poster from the Theater Arts Collection.
The McManus-Young Collection contains 2,500 books on the art and history of conjuring, sleight of hand and stage magic, hypnotism, spiritualism, and witchcraft. This is supplemented by other Theater Arts holdings, including Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), the earliest work to contain a section on magic tricks and legerdemain. Related to this is a collection of books on spiritualism that belonged to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Harry Houdini Collection contains posters, programs, correspondence, and books on conjuring owned by the magician.
The Harry Ransom Center's blog Cultural Compass gives an insider's look at news, events, exhibitions, acquisitions, multimedia content, researcher and scholarly work, conservation, and items from the collections.
