A novelization of the serial was written by John W. Grey and then-popular mystery writer Arthur B. Reeve, who also co-wrote the script. Published in 1919, it contained many stills from the film.
Of the original 15 episodes of this serial, 13 survive in the UCLA Film and Television Archives; the two missing episodes are chapters 4 and 10. Their whereabouts are unknown at this time and are presumed lost.
CHAPTER TITLES: (1) Living Death; (2) The Iron Terror; (3) The Water Peril; (4) The Test; (5) The Chemist's Shop; (6) The Mad Genius; (7) Barbed Wire; (8) The Challenge; (9) The Madagascan Madness; (10) The Binding Ring; (11) The Net; (12) The Death Noose; (13) The Flash of Death; (14) The Tangled Web; (15) Bound at Last or The Unmasking of the Automaton.
The Kino Video version contains chapters 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 and 15 in complete form and fragments from chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 and 11.
A special showing of the first four episodes were given at the Strand Theatre, New York, November 6 [1918]. Each episode contained one of Houdini's famous escapes. (The Moving Picture World, November 23, 1918)