1856 Scarce Victorian Book- Ghosts and Ghost Seers or The Night Side of Nature. Poltergeist.

Author: Catherine Crowe
Title: The Night Side of Nature. Or: Ghosts and Ghost Seers.
Publisher: New York, Redfield, 1856.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 8 " X 5.5 ".
Pages: 451-4 pages.
Binding:  Good original full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall scuffed, soiled and worn - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Good content (tight, staining in the margins of pages -mainly preliminary and last pages - as shown, name of a previous owner on the first endpaper).

Contents: I.Introduction II.--The Dwellers in the Temple III.--Waking and Sleeping, and how the Dweller in the Temple sometimes looks abroad IV.--Allegorical Dreams, Presentiments, etc V.--Warnings VI.--Double Dreaming and Trance,Wraiths, etc VII.--Wraiths VIII.--Doppelgängers, or Doubles IX.--Apparitions X.--The Future that awaits XI.--The Power of Will XII.--Troubled Spirits XIII.--Haunted Houses XIV.--Spectral Lights, and Apparitions attached to Certain Families XV.--Apparitions seeking the Prayers of the Living XVI.--The Poltergeist of the Germans, and Possession XVII.--Miscellaneous Phenomena XVIII.--Conclusion.

Estimate : (USD 300 - USD 500)

The book: Rare early edition of this classic book which introduced the word poltergeist to English speakers, this edition published a couple of after the author's infamous 1854 nake jaunt through Edinburgh due to supernatural spirits... Catherine Crowe turned increasingly to supernatural subjects, inspired by German writers. Her collection The Night-side of Nature (1848) became her most popular work . It was translated into German and French, and is said to have influenced the views of Charles Baudelaire. Her own involvement in such matters came to a bizarre culmination in February 1854, when she was discovered naked in Edinburgh one night, convinced that spirits had rendered her invisible. She was treated for mental illness and recovered.  This edition comprises the original (two volumes bound as one), with some revisions and additions and a new preface. An intriguing collection of sketches and anecdotes relating to ghosts and the mystery of life as understood by this noted Victorian novelist

The author: Catherine Ann Crowe, née Stevens, (20 September 1803 in Borough Green, Kent – 14 June 1876 in Folkestone), was an English novelist, story writer and playwright, who also wrote for children.