Many people assisted me by sharing or tracking down archival material, books, articles, and documentary footage—among others, Greg Bryant, Kristabelle Munson, Jason Ridler, David Shaw, my sister Barbara Legan, my brother Brian Hand, my sister-in-law Amy Hand, and Ken Barr, who shared his childhood memories of Riverview Amusement Park and Chicago.

Penn Jillette told me about the African magician Black Herman and provided an introduction to the legendary magician Johnny Thompson. Johnny, the Great Tomsoni, spoke to me at length about his experience of working at Riverview as a boy magician, sharing his insight into the park’s history, the characters who populated it, and early twentieth-century magicians in the United States. His kindness and generosity toward a total stranger were exceptional but not at all out of character, as demonstrated by the outpouring of love for him after his death, at eighty-four, earlier this year.

Enza Vescera tracked down a rare copy of Ben Hecht’s A Child of the Century. Robert Levy gave me a copy of Henry Darger’s Room: 851 Webster. Ellen Datlow, Gemma Files, Jeffrey Ford, Callie Hand, Cara Hoffman, Carla Hufstedler, Robert Levy, Sharyn November, Bill Sheehan, and Gary Wolfe all read early drafts and gave suggestions for improvements.

Finally, my love to my partner, John Clute, who as ever read multiple drafts, year after year, offering editorial and moral support when it seemed that Henry and Pin’s adventures would never see the light of day, or end. Most of all, my love and thanks to my mother, Alice Ann Silverthorn Hand, who shares my love for Henry Darger’s work, and who thought he would make a good detective.

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On Henry Darger

I’ve been obsessed with Henry Darger since 1979, when I heard a haunting and enigmatic song titled “The Vivian Girls,” by the late avant-garde performer Snakefinger. A few years later, I learned the song was inspired by the self-taught Chicago artist Henry Darger. In 2002, I reviewed John M. MacGregor’s groundbreaking Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal and wrote at length about the similarities between Darger’s work and that of J. R. R. Tolkien, another Catholic visionary artist and author. My notes below are excerpted from that article. You can read it in its entirety at https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2002/eh0210.htm, or visit my website, www.elizabethhand.com.