Historians Richard Wiseman and David Britland, both of whom specialize in the culture of magic, collaborated on the research and co-authored the book.

Photos and details of the acquisitions accompany the book’s historical look at 28 of the most groundbreaking magicians - from a 16th-century magistrate who wrote the first book on conjuring to a woman who caught bullets in her teeth. The turban that Alexander employed to read minds, the sawing-in-half prop used by Dante, and a costume worn by “Queen of Magic” Adelaide Herrmann from the turn of the 19th century, are among the more than 200,000 artifacts Copperfield has collected over the years. A maze of rooms follows, each filled with carefully curated stagings of tens of thousands of pieces of magic memorabilia, props, publications, costumes, posters and assorted ephemera.Ĭopperfield’s Houdini collection, the largest in the world, features the legendary musician’s water torture chamber, metamorphosis trunk and straitjacket. (Homer Anthony Liwag)Įntering the space is a cinematic experience, and begins as a replica of Copperfield’s family menswear store and a secret passage into the undiscovered. The tub sits in the museum filled with plastic ice cubes as an homage. Harry Houdini often filled his bathtub with ice water to prepare himself for acts that involved jumping into lakes and rivers. One of the straight jackets used by magician Harry Houdini on display at David Copperfield's International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts.

Harry Houdini considered the Water Torture Cell one of his greatest inventions, and is displayed at David Copperfield's International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts. “I wanted to share with many more people.” “We do tours of the museum for scholars, for the press, for scientists, for filmmakers, for authors, they come here and experience this eight people at a time,” he said. “This museum is something that’s really an amazing place, but that I can’t share with the mass public because of the secrets they’re involved in here,” Copperfield said in a rare interview inside the museum, clad in jeans, a casual shirt and zippered jacket, all in signature black. And despite its undeniable potential as a ticketed attraction, the museum has never been open to the public.īut now Copperfield is offering the world its first glimpse of the vast trove of supernatural artifacts in his new book “David Copperfield’s History of Magic.” The 272-page hardbound volume is appropriately released during Halloween week, the most spellbinding time of the year. While the secret museum has no windows, it offers a sweeping view of the history of magic. This museum is something that’s really an amazing place, but that I can’t share with the mass public because of the secrets they’re involved in here. A turban associated with the magician Alexander the Man Who Knows on display at David Copperfield's International Museum and Library of the Conjuring Arts.

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