Book Reviving Adelaide Herrmann’s Memoir Gets Lincoln Center Launch Nov. 2

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A new book built around the rediscovered memoir of Adelaide Herrmann, the Victorian-era performer billed as "the Queen of Magic," launches November 2 at Lincoln Center, according to the announcement.

Herrmann, who lived from 1853 to 1932, rose to prominence as a magician following her husband Alexander Herrmann’s unexpected passing, a famed illusionist known onstage as Herrmann the Great. She took over his show and built her own career as a headlining act in American vaudeville at a time when the stage was overwhelmingly dominated by men, performing for decades afterward. Her memoir, titled "Sixty-Five Years of Magic," had been lost for decades before researcher and performer BOOMSKY uncovered and published it in 2011, restoring a firsthand account of Herrmann’s career in her own words.

The November 2 event described in the announcement is billed as a livestreamed launch party built around the book, framed as a tribute to Herrmann’s career. The venue and date follow a related program earlier this year: a separate tribute billed as "Homage to Adelaide Herrmann" was staged April 17 at Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Public Library, suggesting sustained interest in her story from within the magic community over the course of 2026.

Herrmann’s resurfacing in print also arrives alongside renewed attention to her husband’s legacy — a 2026 biography, "Herrmann the Great: A Journey through Media" by Michael Cantor, examines Alexander Herrmann’s stage persona and cultural influence through period newsprint coverage, though it is a separate project from the Adelaide Herrmann book.

Studio CarryOnHarry finds the real story here less about the launch event than about the memoir itself: a firsthand account from one of the first women to headline American vaudeville, lost for nearly 80 years before it saw print. That’s worth more attention than a single launch date.

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