Harry Houdini and the Clapham Road bookshop

Harry Houdini (1874-1926), the Hungarian-born American escapologist and illusionist (think 19th century version of David Blaine), has a little-known connection to Clapham Road. He was a frequent visitor to the Ivy House antiquarian bookshop at 306 Clapham Road, owned by John Salkeld (born 1826).

Houdini was a keen collector of playbills and visited the shop often to buy them from Salkeld. Houdini's relationship with the owner and his wife Eliza was cemented in 1908 when Eliza gave him shelter from an excited crowd after a stunt in which he escaped from police manacles.

As a thank-you, Houdini gave Eliza a copy of "The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin", which was sold at Bonhams in 2005.

The seller of the book was Salkeld's grandchild, who said: "[The] bookshop in London [...] was frequented by many of the Victorian literati such as Macaulay, Dickens and Thackeray who used it as a sort of unofficial club. Mr Gladstone, the Prime Minister, was also one of his clients. My grandfather used to personally deliver books ordered to the eminent politician’s home."

On 11 July 1908, The New York Times remembered Salkeld this way:

"John Salkeld, who died lately in London at the age of 81, was a second-hand bookseller of the good old type, renowned in fiction, encountered frequently in literary biography, but not often met with nowadays in one's walks abroad. He began to collect old books and sell them in his boyhood. He acquired a large knowledge of books and literature, and was the friend of many eminent bookish men, including Macaulay, Thoms, the elder Dilke, and John Forster. More than thirty years ago he moved down to Clapham Road, where he had a notable bookshop. He had acquired many treasures, and was concerned in many now historic discoveries of rare books and manuscripts. His catalogues of his own collections are treasured in the Bodleian Library."

Illustration from The Bookhunter in London by William Roberts (Project Gutenberg).