Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Many - perhaps even most - books that appear on PG are "long out of print". What is it about these particular books that means they will never be a part of PG?
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Maybe 'never' is too strong of a word, but I really doubt most of the Houdini Collection ever will be. The Houdini Collection was Harry Houdini's private research library, most of it is books and journals on the turn of the century Spiritualist movement. Some of the books are extremely rare, as in one of a kind; and others are books that had limited private runs or were never available to the general public. It is considered to be one of the largest, if not the largest, private collection on Spritualism, demonology, magic, etc. in the world. While some of these books may end up being in PG one day, it's likely that they will come from these files and not from someone using an actual copy of the book.
He left the collection to the Library of Congress when he died. You can find out more about it here:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/122.html