The Witch of Lime Street
Séance, Seduction, and Houdini in the Spirit World
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Narrated by:
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Simon Vance
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By:
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David Jaher
About this listen
History comes alive in this textured account of the rivalry between Harry Houdini and the so-called Witch of Lime Street, whose iconic lives intersected at a time when science was on the verge of embracing the paranormal.
The 1920s are famous as the golden age of jazz and glamour, but it was also an era of fevered yearning for communion with the spirit world, after the loss of tens of millions in the First World War and the Spanish-flu epidemic. A desperate search for reunion with dead loved ones precipitated a tidal wave of self-proclaimed psychics—and, as reputable media sought stories on occult phenomena, mediums became celebrities.
Against this backdrop, in 1924, the pretty wife of a distinguished Boston surgeon came to embody the raging national debate over Spiritualism, a movement devoted to communication with the dead. Reporters dubbed her the blonde Witch of Lime Street, but she was known to her followers simply as Margery. Her most vocal advocate was none other than Sherlock Holmes' creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who believed so thoroughly in Margery's powers that he urged her to enter a controversial contest, sponsored by Scientific American and offering a large cash prize to the first medium declared authentic by its impressive five-man investigative committee. Admired for both her exceptional charm and her dazzling effects, Margery was the best hope for the psychic practice to be empirically verified. Her supernatural gifts beguiled four of the judges. There was only one left to convince...the acclaimed escape artist, Harry Houdini.
David Jaher's extraordinary debut culminates in the showdown between Houdini, a relentless unmasker of charlatans, and Margery, the nation's most credible spirit medium. The Witch of Lime Street, the first book to capture their electric public rivalry and the competition that brought them into each other’s orbit, returns us to an oft-mythologized era to deepen our understanding of its history, all while igniting our imagination and engaging with the timeless question: Is there life after death?
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Critic reviews
An NPR Best Book of 2015
“Riveting reading...flamboyant, enigmatic, and complex characters. [Jaher] is also a diligent researcher, and his storytelling skills are impressive.” —Wall Street Journal
“Occasionally, you run across a book so good it feels like a secret — and spend months recommending it to anyone who will listen. That's The Witch of Lime Street.” —Genevieve Valentine, NPR's Best Books of 2015
“David Jaher’s stunning and brilliantly written account of the battle between the Great Houdini and the blond Witch of Lime Street illuminates a lost period in American history...One of Jaher’s great achievements is to build real suspense in a tale whose conclusion is foreordained…captivating and unforgettable.” —Cass Sunstein, The New York Review of Books
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- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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Paranormality
- The Science of the Supernatural
- By: Richard Wiseman
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Professor Richard Wiseman is clear about one thing: paranormal phenomena don't exist. But in the same way that the science of space travel transforms our everyday lives, so research into telepathy, fortune-telling and out of body experiences produces remarkable insights into our brains, behaviour and beliefs.
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great insight into what one believes is paranormal
- By Ony on 07-10-16
By: Richard Wiseman
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Destiny of the Republic
- A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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James A. Garfield may have been the most extraordinary man ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what happened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in turmoil.
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Marvelous, Magnificent, Millard
- By Mel on 02-08-12
By: Candice Millard
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Franklin and Lucy
- President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life
- By: Joseph E. Persico
- Narrated by: Ted Barker
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was arguably the greatest figure of the 20th century. While FDR's official circle was predominantly male, it was his relationships with women - particularly with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd - that most vividly bring to light the human being beneath this towering statesman.
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Franklin and Lucy
- By Connie's on 03-06-09
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Jackie, Ethel, Joan
- Women of Camelot
- By: J. Randy Taraborrelli
- Narrated by: Beth Fowler
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Abridged
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What does it mean to be a Kennedy? If ever three women would be challenged and changed by marriage into a family, it would be Jacqueline Bouvier, Ethel Skakel, and Joan Bennett. None of these radiant brides could have ever been prepared for the fame, the family, and tragedies that would spring from their lives. As they struggled to cope with their husbands' infidelities, the harsh glare of the media, and the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, these women would learn what it meant to be sisters, reaching out to one another with comfort and consolation.
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my first Kennedy book
- By colleen on 06-15-12
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The Italian Secretary
- By: Caleb Carr
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 6 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the Alienist series returns with a chilling elaboration on the Sherlock Holmes canon, as the famed detective investigates a pair of gruesome murders, which cast an otherworldly shadow as far as Queen Victoria herself.
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A True Delight for the Holmes Enthusiast
- By Sagar on 06-03-05
By: Caleb Carr
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Dreamers and Deceivers
- True and Untold Stories of the Heroes and Villains Who Made America
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Jeremy Lowell
- Length: 9 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The new nonfiction from number-one best-selling author and popular radio and television host Glenn Beck.
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Astounding History stories gather life
- By Gil on 11-13-14
By: Glenn Beck
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Charlatan
- America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him and the Age of Flimflam
- By: Pope Brock
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.
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nix the narrator
- By susan nenadic on 02-08-09
By: Pope Brock
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Going Clear
- Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Morton Sellers
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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A clear-sighted revelation, a deep penetration into the world of Scientology by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower, the now-classic study of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack. Based on more than two hundred personal interviews with current and former Scientologists—both famous and less well known—and years of archival research, Lawrence Wright uses his extraordinary investigative ability to uncover for us the inner workings of the Church of Scientology.
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Shockingly Great
- By Michael on 01-27-13
By: Lawrence Wright
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Dutch
- A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
- By: Edmund Morris
- Narrated by: Edmund Morris
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
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This book, the only biography ever authorized by a sitting President - yet written with complete interpretive freedom - is as revolutionary in method as it is formidable in scholarship. When Ronald Reagan moved into the White House in 1981, one of his first literary guests was Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris developed a fascination for the genial yet inscrutable President and, after Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, put aside the second volume of his life of Roosevelt to become an observing eye and ear at the White House.
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Painful
- By john on 02-06-13
By: Edmund Morris
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In the Garden of Beasts
- Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history. A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another....
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I loved it ... and hated it ... simultaneously
- By History on 11-21-11
By: Erik Larson
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Sin in the Second City
- Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Karen Abbott's colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters; their world-famous brothel, the Everleigh Club; and the perennial clash between our nation's hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots culminates in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers. Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to 20th-century modernity.
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Great book - brilliant narrator!
- By Z. Halley on 04-17-10
By: Karen Abbott
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American Rose
- A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee
- By: Karen Abbott
- Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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With the critically acclaimed Sin in the Second City, best-selling author Karen Abbott “pioneered sizzle history” (USA Today). Now she returns with the gripping and expansive story of America’s coming-of-age - told through the extraordinary life of Gypsy Rose Lee and the world she survived and conquered. America in the Roaring Twenties. Vaudeville was king. Talking pictures were only a distant flicker. Speakeasies beckoned beyond dimly lit doorways; money flowed fast and free.
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Well done biography of a complicated Icon
- By Moire on 01-27-11
By: Karen Abbott
What listeners say about The Witch of Lime Street
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Bananas
- 07-26-17
Suspenseful and entertaining
I enjoy books about magicians and the metaphysical. The author delivers a suspenseful and entertaining book. He had me on the edge of my seat til the end.
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- Elaine M. Panzeter
- 07-11-16
A History of the US Psychic
The narration of this book was superb. The book itself was constructed as if each chapter was a stand alone vignette. The narrator brought the stories together in a smooth flowing historical mystical journey through a time in history where most wanted to believe in psychics. What a variety of infamous individuals who joined in on the experiments and debate of the spiritualist movement. What a fun listen!
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- Dr. JSH
- 02-07-16
Wonderful!
Would you consider the audio edition of The Witch of Lime Street to be better than the print version?
Hard to say because I haven't read the print version.
What other book might you compare The Witch of Lime Street to and why?
"The Remedy: Robert Koch, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Quest to Cure Tuberculosis"
Another captivating book featuring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, years before the events of "The Witch."
Which scene was your favorite?
The seances with seemingly supernatural happenings..
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Too long. I like to go slowly and relish.
Any additional comments?
Glad I picked it. Great for those interested in American history, European history, religious studies (Spiritualism),and celebrities of days gone by.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Julie A.
- 10-16-16
awesome account of true spiritualists
held my attention the whole time. features true stories, real people, and famous spiritualist. great book
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- Norm
- 03-07-21
A little everything of mysticism, showmanship,
I found this while referencing Houdini. The Marconi wireless of the 1890s, opened minds to spirituality with a Quija board in the 20s. Mediums tend to be fringe interests, but gained a peak interest about 1925. From his own failed efforts to contact the other side, Harry Houdini developed contempt and wanted to bust the tricksters. I enjoyed this and learned how the game was played. You may like the book if this is your understanding of where the story wanders.
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- Norman Johnson
- 06-21-18
I thought it would never end. .
Way too long for the content. Vance superb as usual. Would have been more interesting with half the words.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Rex Raleigh Morgan
- 05-22-24
👍
Excellent story, well written, and entertaining. Definitely worth the read for anyone interested in the historical timeframe.
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- Blue Dragonfly
- 10-11-15
Houdini, Conan Doyle and Marjorie
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes, to anyone who had an interest in history, famous people and alternative thinking. It is truly fascinating.
What other book might you compare The Witch of Lime Street to and why?
Occult America is quite similar, with a history of alternative approaches to the spiritual.
Which character – as performed by Simon Vance – was your favorite?
Simon Vance is one of my favorite narrators and I loved all the voices. But perhaps my favorite in this book would be the voice of Walter.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
I think probably the most moving parts were the invasive, sometimes cruel, and character destroying attacks and investigations that Marjorie (and other psychics) endured. Proving herself a valid medium must have meant a great deal to her to allow it to go on for years and to endure so much with such an obliging attitude.
Any additional comments?
This is such a complex book that there is a great deal that one could comment on. First, it seemed to me that the rigid examination of alleged psychics was extreme and one wonders why the same kind of rigorous examination hasn't been used to question the tenets of most religions? Another thing that stood out to me is that "The Great Houdini" was really quite a petty and vindictive person who would not allow anyone to surpass him. Somewhat of a different view than is popular. Also, just the overall story of the famous people involved in the early Spiritualist movement both in the U.S. and Europe was intriguing. I suppose the question of whether life continues after death will continue to go on as it is human nature to want to know the unanswerable questions. This book was researched beautifully and gives one a feeling of being there as an observer and being part of a new way of thinking in a new century. Really brilliant!
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7 people found this helpful
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- T Rothschadl
- 10-26-24
White dudes, plus Mina Crandon's vagina
Helped along by the inherent drama and interest of the topic, this book drags around the middle (I do not need to know this much about the many, many men speculating about the capacity of Mina Crandon's vagina). The interesting stuff--the relationship and psychology of Mina and Roi Crandon--finally comes toward the end. Jaher focuses almost exclusively on white dudes, which is an odd choice for documenting a movement, spiritualism, that has been so deeply intertwined with issues of women and femininity since Day 1 with the Fox sisters. I was quite annoyed by the British narrator's persistent mispronunciations of East Coast North American words, from Antigonish (a town in Nov Scotia) down to the Hartford Courant (a newspaper in Connecticut). Perhaps some due diligence could've been exercised? But otherwise, the narrator was good.
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- R. Schechter
- 03-01-16
Great History of a Fascinating Cultural Phenomenon
This book is a scholarly but entertaining discussion of one of the most curious cultural phenomena of the 20th century - the spiritualist craze that swept the country after World War I. The focus is on the climactic episode of this era, when the greatest psychic fraud of the movement finally met her nemesis in the Great Houdini. Indeed, the book reminded me of why I always admired him so much. In the last few years of his life he focused his talents and experience on relentlessly exposing those who were so successful at duping the most vulnerable in society. One of the most interesting side stories is Houdini's conflict with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife - both dedicated advocates of the spiritualist movement.
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2 people found this helpful