Life of a Magician- Robert-Houdin

After having discovered sleight of hand as a teenager in reading the Amateur Magicians Handbook, by Henry Hay, the next book I acquired was the biography of French Magician Robert-Houdin. He was literally the David Copperfield of his age. As a young boy, he was fairly aimless. His father, a watchmaker, sent him to the bookseller to pick up a book on watchmaking. The bookseller mistakenly gave him a treatise on magic tricks and sleight of hand. Houdin found his niche when he read it. He practiced during the day with palming coins all while his hands were in his pocket. Later he graduated to his full evening shows entitled the Soiree Fantastique. What was unusual about Houdin, especially compared to the magicians of his day, was that he appeared in full evening dress, rather than the flowing mystical robes that marked his contemporaries. Further, most magicians of the day had their entire inventory of tricks on the stage at once- in other words, it was like a magic dealer demonstration, rather than a dramatic presentation of mystery. Houdin changed all that. He produced all sorts of items from a flat, empty porfolio. He borrowed a handkerchief, vanished it, and it would appear on top of a budding orange tree, carried aloft by two butterflies. His bakery illusion was a demonstration of automata of the day where the little men would produce a baked sweet requested by the audience member. Very few have reproduced the effect of his levitation performed with his son. Here's a clip from the Life of a Magician featuring the actual apparatus used by Houdin.