Unseen writing by Harry Houdini , the world’s most renowned escapologist and illusionist, is being published in the US on Saturday, the 100th anniversary of his death.

As well as being famous for his magic acts and quest to expose fake mediums and spiritualists before he died in 1926 at the age of 52, Houdini, whose real name was Eric Weisz, was a prolific author , with more than two dozen books, short stories and plays to his name.

One of them, an article titled An Interesting Scrapbook, was never published, and appears for the first time in print Saturday in Strand magazine , a literary publication that specializes in presenting lost or hidden works by prominent writers and historical figures.

It is a detailed look at some of the performers who shaped the early days of magic as a stage production, and inspired the path of Houdini, a Hungarian immigrant to the US as a child, into the best-known, and one of the most creative and popular entertainers of his day in Europe and America.

It features images of…