1922 Scarce First Edition on Cottingley FAIRIES - Arthur Conan DOYLE - The Coming of the Fairies.
(Description)
Author: Arthur Conan DOYLE.
Title: The Coming of the Fairies.
Publisher: New York: George H. Doran Company,1922. First American Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size : 8.5 " X 6 ".
Pages: vi-196 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good original full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed - as shown) under a removable protective mylar cover. A rare find in any condition!
Content: Very good content (bright, tight, and clean, very small tear hard to see to upper margin of frontispiece and title page repaired by a previous owner - as shown, gift note of a previous 1922 owner on the first endpaper - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with the frontispiece portrait and the 14 illustrations (including the Cottingley Fairies photographs).
Estimation : (USD 750 - USD 1000)
The book: Scarce and very nice first US edition of this book on The Cottingley Fairies. The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright (1901–1988) and Frances Griffiths (1907–1986), two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, others believed that they had been faked... A rare find in any condition!
The author: Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle KStJ DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and medical doctor. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 when he published A Study in Scarlet, the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Holmes and Dr. Watson. The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction.