Signed photograph of Australian escapologist and illusionist, Murray, dated 1944.

A$80 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Signed

Gelatin silver print photograph, 139 x 89 mm, signed in ink across the lower section of the image Best wishes, Murray, Escapologist, 1944 ; verso addressed to a young fan in Grantham, Lincolnshire, with 2d stamp and postmark dated Manchester 13 April 1944; in excellent condition. Norman Murray Carrington Walters (11 November 1901 – 22 January 1988), who used the mononym Murray, was an Australian escapologist and illusionist, who found international success between the 1920s and 1950s and settled in Britain. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, the son of William Carrington Walters. Some sources suggest that his full birth name was Leo Norman Maurien Murray Stuart Carrington Walters, though official records generally show him as Norman Murray Walters. As a boy, he saw other illusionists and escapologists, including Houdini, and practised his own routines by handcuffing himself to his bed each night until he managed to free himself. He found work crewing ships, developing and performing his act in cities around the world when docked, and adding illusions to his act as well as escapology (a word that he claimed to have coined, though in fact it had been used earlier by Houdini). He performed in the United States, India, South Africa and South America before arriving in Britain in 1926. He told one interviewer that the feat he was most proud of was being secured to the track of the Peking-Shanghai Railway ten minutes before the Shanghai Express was due to leave the station. He es

• Binding: Hardcover

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