Harry Houdini claims to house the largest collection of original Houdini artifacts in Europe. The Houdini Museum of New York is located at Fantasma Magic, a retail magic manufacturer and seller located in Manhattan. The museum contains several hundred pieces of ephemera, most of which belonged to Harry Houdini. Houdini published numerous books during his career (some of which were written by his good friend Walter B. Gibson, the creator of The Shadow) Harry Houdini Harry Houdini (; born Erik Weisz, later Ehrich Weiss or Harry Weiss; March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926) was a Hungarian-born American illusionist and stunt performer,
Jan Weiss Jan Weiss Jan Weiss (10 May 1892 – 7 March 1972) was a Czech author, best known for his surrealist novel "House of a Thousand Floors" (). Jan Weiss was born on 10 May 1892, at Valdštejnská 68 in the town of Jilemnice, the son of Josef Weiss (known locally as "Monarch") and Filoména Richter. His mother died in 1897 when he was five years old, and his father remarried a German woman and had another three children. As an adolescent, Weiss and his cousin were known as local troublemakers. In 1913, he finished his secondary education at a Gymnasium