The Coming of the Fairies

Description

The Cottingley photos (taken circa 1917 – 1921) were a series of unusual photographs, apparently depicting fairies, made by two young girls in Cottingley, near the English city of Bradford. As a convicted spiritualist fascinated by the photographs, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this book as a meditation on spiritualism, pondering on the existence of the unseen.

Although the five photographs taken by cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were subsequently proven to be (mostly) fake, they had caused quite a stir at the beginning of the 20th century, and Doyle actually hired experts in photography to analyze their validity. Edward Gardner, a leading member of the Theosophical Society in Bradford attested that “these are straight forward photographs of whatever was in front of the camera at the time,” even though he did not go so far as to say that they were proof of the existence of fairies.

Needless to say, Doyle was completely taken aback by the results, and in his book, The Coming of the Fairies, he presents a lengthy discussion on the topic of the photographs and what they represent. He also speaks about the importance of such finds, as well as their crucial meaning, were they to be proven as genuine.

If you were at all intrigued by Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, you will undoubtedly see the literary and philosophical value of this remarkable book. The Coming of the Fairies is passionately written as a guide to fairies, and can be recommended to people of all ages. Far from seeming dated from a modern point of view, the work is methodical and quite captivating, pushing the boundaries of the reasoning and logic upon which most people have relied on for centuries.

For anyone interested in a pleasant, well-organized and quite elegant writing that studies the existence of fairies, The Coming of the Fairies is an absolute must-read.
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