Talks with the dead: luminous rays from the unseen world, illustrated with spirit photographs

Lobb, John. Talks with the dead: luminous rays from the unseen world, illustrated with spirit photographs. New edition (third), revised and enlarged. London: John Lobb, 1909. Hardback, Good. Red cloth, bevelled edges, a little rubbed at edges. Gilt decoration to front with illustration of "The Spirit of Therese, Materialised". Black lettering to spine. Binding good, very slightly askew, weaker at the title page. Front pastedown has ownership signature from October 1923 and small seller's label of Chappell, Gillingham, Kent. Endpapers browned. Two-sided frontispiece with spirit photographs. xiv, 156pp., b/w plates. Plate opposite p. 48 is detached but complete. Text all clean and bright. The photographs are by Richard Boursnell (1832 1909) a British medium and spirit photographer. Boursnell worked in a partnership with a professional photographer in Fleet Street, London. According to the psychical researcher Simeon Edmunds, the spirit photographs of Boursnell "proved fraudulent on a number of occasions." In 1902, Boursnell took a photograph of the spiritualist William Thomas Stead and a "spirit" extra appeared which was identified as Piet Botha, a Boer commandant killed in the South African War. Stead claimed Botha was unknown in England and stated that the photograph was of supernatural origin, however, magician John Nevil Maskelyne and Andrew Wilson discovered that Botha's death had been reported in London newspapers in 1899 with a photograph of Botha. Boursnell was exposed when F. C. Barnes from Brisbane, Australia visited him in London in 1908. The "spirit" extra from the photograph was identified as Empress Elisabeth of Austria, taken from a book. RightWayUp Books aims to provide accurate and detailed descriptions. All images are of the actual book for sale - no stock images are ever used. Thank you for looking at this listing.…