1875 Scarce First Edition - Spiritualism, People from the Other World by Henry S. Olcott.

Author: Henry Steel Olcott.
Title: People from the Other World.
Publisher: Hartford, Conn, American Publishing Company, 1875. First Edition. 
Language: Text in English.
Size: 8 " X 5.5 ".
Pages: xv-492 pages.
Binding: Attractive and very good original full cloth binding (hinges fine, overall slightly scuffed and worn - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover. A rare find in any condition!
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, last endpaper inner joint worn but still tight - as shown, rare light foxing or staining - as shown). 
Illustration: Complete with the 58 truly fascinating illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES, & T. W. WILLIAMS.

Estimate: (Scarce with practically no other copy available worldwide).

The book: Scarce First edition of this famous book on Spiritualism by Olcott. He published People from the Other World in 1875. Part 1 of the work is a careful account of Olcott's 1874 investigations into the famous Eddy brothers of Chittenden, Vermont, and their claimed psychic powers. Part 2 is a report into two Philadelphia mediums who claimed to be able to call up two spirits called John and Katie King. The account includes descriptions of séances, healings, levitation, teleportation and the famous Compton transfiguration. Olcott, a founding member of the Theosophical Society and its first president, was a pioneer of psychical research. This work, deeply influenced by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), who he met at Chittenden, is one of his most popular. It offers an important insight into the nineteenth-century fascination with the occult and is a classic example of a Victorian attempt to approach the supernatural with the rigours of scientific investigation.

The author: Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (2 August 1832 – 17 February 1907) was an American military officer, journalist, lawyer, Freemason and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society.
Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. His subsequent actions as president of the Theosophical Society helped create a renaissance in the study of Buddhism. Olcott is considered a Buddhist modernist for his efforts in interpreting Buddhism through a Westernized lens.