The Coming of the Fairies

Reading The Coming of the Fairies made me a believer that there are other forms of life, not necessarily in human form, that perhaps we should consider. Did two young girls truly capture images of fairies with their camera? Not only do I believe they did, everyone I've shown this book to admits that the picture of the young lady on the cover is none other than me. Funny thing is, I'm a photographer, too. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle trusted these girls, and was a believer himself. I was enthralled with this book and am very happy it's found a place in my library.

In 1917 two young English girls claimed to have taken photographs of fairies near the village of Cottingley in Yorkshire. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became interested in the case, and produced this book indicating his whole hearted belief in the girls and in fairies. It seems really incredible that the creator of the ultra-analytical Sherlock Holmes could have been taken in by photos which are clearly of cut out paper drawings, held together with hat pins and wearing clothing and hairstyles which are very recognizeable early twentieth century fashions. Fortunately, in this reprint edition we have an introduction by John M. Lynch, a university professor who provides a short biography of Doyle and some fascinating information on the Theosophical Movement, in which Doyle, especially after the death of his son in World War I, became interested. Doyle himself gives some interesting information about other fairy sightings and folklore, so that the book is highly diverting to read, even if one is not prepared to believe.

Back in print after over half a century due to the efforts of the University of Nebraska Press, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's curious The Coming of the Fairies (2006, originally 1922) examines the key events surrounding the Cottingley fairy photograph phenomenon that swept England in the early 1920s. Despite the unfortunate inclusion of one frivolous chapter, 'Observations Of A Clairvoyant,' which was written by "an anonymous seer," the book is an interesting, if not always credible, exploration of its highly unusual subject. Today, the photographs--which were recently exhibited in New York City--typically elicit one of two polarized responses: bemused academics, scientists, and the rational 'average man' dismiss them out of hand as clear and obvious fakes, while some New Age adherents, who are perhaps also sentimentalists, tend to find at least some of the photographs convincingly authentic. The text on this edition's back cover--and its perfunctory introduction by Arizona State University Professor John M. Lynch--make it abundantly clear where the University of Nebraska Press stands on the issue: fairies, are, of course, an impossibility, scientific or otherwise. But Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of master rationalist detective Sherlock Homes, was hardly so certain of their lack of reality himself. Though he qualifies his initial opinions at every turn, and stresses the objective evaluation the photographs received by a number of expert sources, including Kodak, even his early paragraphs fairly burst with unbridled enthusiasm and barely suppressed belief. At the time that the photographs initially came to light, Conan Doyle was mourning the loss of a son who died in the Great War, which in turn led the author to an active investigation of Spiritualism. Proof of the existence of fairies was ultimately of secondary interest to him; what he desperately sought was proof of an afterlife, and hence, the continued existence of his son on another plane ("...and once fairies are admitted other psychic phenomena will find a more ready acceptance."). If Spiritualism offered largely intangible 'evidence' of the transmigration of the soul if it offered any at all, tangible evidence of fairies generally bolstered Conan Doyle's rapidly evolving belief in an unseen world. To complicate matters, like the confusion surrounding the infamous debunking of the 'Surgeon's Photo' that purported to reveal the Loch Ness Monster (and the subsequent revelation that the 'truth' might have itself have been a hoax), at the end of their lives, the two photographers in question, cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, openly admitted to an eager media that the photographs had been faked. But then Frances, who died first, waffled--by 'revealing' that only some of the photographs were faked, and nevertheless insisted, right up until her death in 1986, that she and her cousin had encountered, interacted with, and photographed fairies "at the beck" and near "the botto

A delightful book. In 1920, two girls in Yorkshire took photos which they said showed fairies in the woods near their home. The pictures are such obvious fakes (made with paper cutouts, as the girls later admitted) that it's amazing to think anyone could be taken in. And yet many were, including the creator of Sherlock Holmes, who wrote this book! This is a reprint, with an introduction explaining how Conan Doyle's life experiences set him up to be fooled. The book discusses, in great detail, the behavior and origins of fairies (in the scheme of Darwinian evolution), along with numerous accounts of eyewitness sightings (remarkably, one is by someone blind since birth!). The book is so well argued that by the time I finished it, I was starting to think that there might be something to COnan Doyle's claims about fairies.....