For a time the disappointment killed all creative power. With no laurel wreath to carve, my tools lay idle. The spirit of investigation languished. Then came the reaction. There was work to be done. Those who had wrought honestly deserved the credit that had been taken from them. In justice to the living as well as the dead the history of the magic must be revised. The book, accepted for more than half a century as an authority on our craft, must stand forth for what it is, a clever romance, a well-written volume of fiction. That is why to-day I offer to the profession of magic, to the world of laymen readers to whom its history has always appealed, and to the literary savants who dip into it as a recreation, the results of my investigations. These, I believe, will show Robert-Houdin's true place in the history of magic and give to his predecessors, in a profession which in each generation becomes more serious and more dignified, the credit they deserve. [Illustration: Frontispiece of "Hocus Pocus," Second Edition, 1635, one of the earliest works on magic. From the Harry Houdini Collection.] My investigations cover nearly twenty years of a busy professional career. Every hour which I could spare from my professional work was given over to study in libraries, to interviews with retired magicians and collectors, and to browsing in old bookstores and antique shops where rare collections of programs, newspapers, and prints might be found. [Illustration: John Baptist Porta, the Neapolitan writer on magic. From an old woodcut in the Harry Houdini Collection.] In order to conduct my researches intelligently, I was compelled to pick up a smattering of the language of each country in which I played. The average collector or proprietor of an old bookshop is a canny, suspicious individual who must accept you as a friend before he will uncover his choicest treasures. As authorities, books on magic and kindred arts are practically worthless. The earliest books, like the magician stories written by Sir John Mandeville in 1356, read like prototypes of to-day's dime novels. They are thrilling tales of travellers who witnessed magical performances, but they are not authentic records of performers and their work. One of the oldest books in my collection is "Natural and Unnatural Magic" by Gantziony, dated 1489. It is the author's script, exquisite in its German chirography, artistic in its illuminated illustrations, but worthless as an historical record, though many of the writer's descriptions and explanations of old-time tricks are most interesting. Early in the seventeenth century appeared "Hocus Pocus," the most widely copied book in the literature of magic. The second edition, dated 1635, I have in my library. I have never been able to find a copy of the first edition or to ascertain the date at which it was published.