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Death From A Top Hat
''Death from a Top Hat'' (1938) is a locked-room mystery novel written by Clayton Rawson. It is the first of four mysteries featuring The Great Merlini, a stage magician and Rawson's favorite protagonist. In a poll of 17 detective story writers and reviewers, this novel was voted as the seventh best locked room mystery of all time. Plot summary "As the story opens, free-lance writer Ross Harte is writing a magazine article on the modern detective story, and most of this article-to-be is included in the first chapter."Roseman, Mill ''et al.'' ''Detectionary''. New York: Overlook Press, 1971. When a magician is found dead inside his locked and (thoroughly) sealed apartment, the police call in Merlini to help explain the impossible, "perhaps on the theory that it takes a magician to catch one." All the suspects, however, are accustomed to producing the impossible. They include a professional medium, an escape artist, a couple of magicians, a ventriloquist, and two people who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mapback
Mapback is a term used by paperback collectors to refer to the earliest paperback books published by Dell Books, beginning in 1943. The books are known as mapbacks because the back cover of the book contains a map that illustrates the location of the action. Dell books were numbered in series. Mapbacks extend from #5 to at least #550; then maps became less of a fixed feature of the books and disappeared entirely in 1951. (Numbers 1 through 4 had no map, although a later re-publication of #4, ''The American Gun Mystery'' by Ellery Queen, added a map.) The occasional number in the series between #5 and #550 contains no map, but some sort of full-page graphic or text connected with the book's contents. The artwork of the maps began with quite detailed maps, and later numbers contain more stylized ones. "The back cover map was very popular with readers and remains popular with collectors ... the Dell 'mapbacks' are among the most well known vintage paperbacks." "Dell's most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bilocation
Bilocation, or sometimes multilocation, is an alleged psychic or miraculous ability wherein an individual or object is located (or appears to be located) in two distinct places at the same time. Reports of bilocational phenomena have been made in a wide variety of historical and religious contexts, ranging from ancient Greek legends and Christian traditions to modern occultism. In ancient Greece The ancient Greek philosopher Pythagoras is said to have been capable of bilocation. According to Porphyry (writing several centuries after Pythagoras): A similar story is told of Apollonius of Tyana, who was supposedly present simultaneously in Smyrna and Ephesus. In religion and mysticism The concept of bilocation has been linked with shamanism, Theosophy, Islam (especially Sufism), and Jewish mysticism. Hinduism and Buddhism It is also one of the '' siddhis'' of Hinduism and Buddhism. Several prominent Hindu gurus, including Neem Karoli Baba, Sri Yukteswar,Yogananda, Paramahans ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novels By Clayton Rawson
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the historica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1938 American Novels
Events January * January 1 ** The new constitution of Estonia enters into force, which many consider to be the ending of the Era of Silence and the authoritarian regime. ** State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France ( SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Safinaz Zulficar, who becomes Queen Farida, in Cairo. * January 27 – The Honeymoon Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York, collapses as a result of an ice jam. February * February 4 ** Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. General Werner von Fritsch is forced to resign as Commander of Chief of the German Army following accusations of homosexuality, and replaced by General Walthe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tod Browning
Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films, and was often cited in the trade press as the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema. Browning's career spanned the silent film and sound film eras. He is known as the director of ''Dracula (1931 English-language film), Dracula'' (1931), ''Freaks (1932 film), Freaks'' (1932), and his silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean. Early life Charles Albert Browning, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning. Charles Albert Sr., "a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist," provided his family with a middle-class and Baptists, Baptist household. Browning's uncle, the baseball star Pete Browning, Pete "Louisville Slug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young (February 22, 1907 – July 21, 1998) was an American film, television and radio actor best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father character, in ''Father Knows Best'' (CBS, then NBC, then CBS again) and the physician Marcus Welby in ''Marcus Welby, M.D.'' (ABC). Early life Born in Chicago, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father, Thomas E. Young, and an American mother, Margaret Fyfe. While Young was a child, the family moved to various locations within the U.S., including Seattle as well as Los Angeles, where Young was a student at Abraham Lincoln High School. After graduation, he studied and performed at the Pasadena Playhouse while working odd jobs and appearing in bit parts in silent films. While touring with a stock company producing "The Ship", Young was discovered by a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout who signed the fledgling actor to a contract. Young made his sound-film debut for Fox Film Corporation in the 1931 Charlie Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miracles For Sale
''Miracles for Sale'' is a 1939 American mystery film directed by Tod Browning, and starring Robert Young and Florence Rice. It was Browning's final film as a director. The film is based on a locked-room mystery novel by well-known mystery writer Clayton Rawson, ''Death from a Top Hat'', which was the first to feature his series detective The Great Merlini. In this film, Merlini's character has been changed into Michael Morgan (The Amazing Morgan) as portrayed by Robert Young. Don Diavolo, another series character in Rawson's work under his pseudonym, Stuart Towne, appears here as Dave Duvallo. Plot In the late 1930s, inactive New York magician Michael "Mike" Morgan exposes fraudulent magicians and psychics who prey on the unsuspecting. When demonologist Dr. Sabbat is mysteriously murdered, Mike assists the police in developing suspects which include Tauro and Dave Duvallo - two magicians last seen with Sabbat; a couple named La Claire who perform tricks by telepathy; a psychic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whodunnit
A ''whodunit'' or ''whodunnit'' (a colloquial elision of "Who asdone it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues to the case, from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective. Concept A whodunit follows the paradigm of the classical detective story in the sense that it presents crime as a puzzle to be solved through a chain of questions that the detective poses. In a whodunit, however, the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. This engages the readers so that they strive to compete with or outguess the expert investigator. A defining feature of the whodunit narrative is the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Three Coffins
''The Hollow Man'' (''The Three Coffins'' in the USA) is a 1935 locked room mystery novel by the American writer John Dickson Carr, featuring his recurring investigator Gideon Fell. It contains in chapter 17 the often-reprinted "locked room lecture" in which Dr Fell speaks directly to the reader, setting out the various ways in which murder can be committed in an apparently locked room or otherwise impossible situation. The book has received high praise from many critics, and in 1981 was selected as the best locked room mystery of all time by a panel of 17 mystery authors and reviewers. Plot Professor Charles Grimaud's meeting with friends at a London tavern is interrupted by the illusionist Pierre Fley, who threatens Grimaud and warns of an even more dangerous brother who seeks Grimaud's life. Grimaud tells him to send his brother and be damned. A few nights later, a visitor concealing his identity with a false face arrives at Grimaud's house and is shown up to his s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Dickson Carr
John Dickson Carr (November 30, 1906 – February 27, 1977) was an American author of detective stories, who also published using the pseudonyms Carter Dickson, Carr Dickson, and Roger Fairbairn. He lived in England for a number of years, and is often grouped among "British-style" mystery writers. Most (though not all) of his novels had English settings, especially country villages and estates, and English characters. His two best-known fictional detectives ( Dr. Gideon Fell and Sir Henry Merrivale) were both English. Carr is generally regarded as one of the greatest writers of so-called "Golden Age" mysteries; complex, plot-driven stories in which the puzzle is paramount. He was influenced in this regard by the works of Gaston Leroux and by the Father Brown stories of G. K. Chesterton. He was a master of the so-called locked room mystery, in which a detective solves apparently impossible crimes. The Dr. Fell mystery '' The Hollow Man'' (1935), usually considered Carr's masterp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spirit-tapping
Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. Belief in psychic ability is widespread despite the absence of objective evidence for its existence. Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship. An experiment undertaken by the British Psychological Society led to the conclusion that the test subjects demonstrated no mediumistic ability. Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century, when ouija boards were used as a source of entertainment. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud—with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians—and the practice began to lose credibility.Ruth Brandon. (1983). ''The Spiritualists: The Passio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magic (illusion)
Magic, which encompasses the subgenres of illusion, stage magic, and close up magic, among others, is a performing art in which audiences are entertained by tricks, effects, or illusions of seemingly impossible feats, using natural means. It is to be distinguished from paranormal magic which are effects claimed to be created through supernatural means. It is one of the oldest performing arts in the world. Modern entertainment magic, as pioneered by 19th-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, has become a popular theatrical art form. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, magicians such as Maskelyne and Devant, Howard Thurston, Harry Kellar, and Harry Houdini achieved widespread commercial success during what has become known as "the Golden Age of Magic." During this period, performance magic became a staple of Broadway theatre, vaudeville, and music halls. Magic retained its popularity in the television age, with magicians such as Paul Daniels, David Copperfield ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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