Mark Dimunation, the head of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, writes about the famous last seance that attempted to reach the ghost of Harry Houdini, atop the Knickerbocker Hotel on Halloween, 1936.
We first ran this piece last year at Halloween. It proved so popular year-round that we reprint it this Halloween season. It was co-researched and co-written by digital library specialist Elizabeth Gettins, who also had the brilliant idea for the piece. An ancient tome delving into the dark arts of witchcraft and magic…a book …
The Library has a pair of the 15th century's most influential books on the alleged practices of witchcraft, both from the era when alleged witches were tortured and killed.
The Library's newest crowdsourcing campaign are the vast notebooks of Frederick Hockley, a 19th century British Spiritualist who believed he could communicate with the dead.
Cary O’Dell at the Library’s National Recording Registry runs our Mystery Photo Contest. He most recently wrote about twelve of our most difficult to identify entries. Readers solved four of them.