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First and only contemporary edition of this scholarly study, commended by the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research as a "painstaking compilation" (21, 1924, pp. 358-9), and still referenced today. Uncommon in commerce, this copy preserved in exceptional condition, retaining the scarce jacket, and with an authorial inscription establishing a superb SPR association. Besterman (1904-76) was a fascinating character. Born in Lodz, he left for London as a youth. Apparently entirely an autodidact, he claimed that he educated himself at the British Library, in 1924 he published a bibliography of the works of theosophist Annie Besant, and in 1927 became investigating officer for the SPR, a post he held until 1935, executing his duties with the utmost rigour. This, his second work and perhaps best regarded, was described as the first study to attempt to address the subject "in a purely scientific spirit" (jacket blurb). In the mid-30s he turned to bibliography with similar enthusiasm, becoming special lecturer at the London School of Librarianship, and publishing extensively, works included his "classic" (ODNB) The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography. Following service with the Army Bureau of Current Affairs during WWII and UNESCO in the immediate aftermath, he redirected his considerable energies to "publishing the correspondence and works of Voltaire, a liberal spirit with whom he identified. Living, by agreement with the city of Geneva, in Voltaire's former house Les Délices, he founded the Institut et Musée Voltaire there (1952), while editing that writer's correspondence (107 vols., 1953 65) as well as the equally multi-volume series Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century". On his death he left his book and manuscript collection to Oxford, which also became the home of the Voltaire Foundation. His estate was probated at close to £825,000, certainly in excess of £10m today, and he left a significant sum to the British Humanist Association to support the annual Voltaire Lecture. Typical of Rider's output this book would have been issued in a fairly limited print run, perhaps 1,000-1,250 copies, deceptively attractively produced. The cloth used is extremely thin, and the bindings tend to become brittle with time; the jackets generally soften on the folds and brown heavily, this copy is truly a remarkable survival and a delightful object. Further, it is inscribed on the front endpaper in Besterman's minuscule, somewhat crabbed, hand: "For Mr & Mrs W. H. S. Theo B.". The recipients being William Henry Salter (1880-1969) and his wife Helen (1883-1959)), prominent members of the SPR, being particularly interested in automatic writing, both Helen herself and her mother being exponents. Later in the library of notable parapsychologist and paranormal investigator, Alan Gauld (1932-24), with his small bookplate to the front pastedown. Octavo. pp. xiii, 183. Original deep red cloth, lettered in gilt on the spine and to the front cover enclosed in triple blind ruled panel; typographical dust jacket, very dark greenish blue type on thickish moderate yellow green paper. Head and tail of spine, a touch crumpled, back fore-corner bumped; endpapers differentially lightly browned from presence of the jacket, a couple of spots of foxing to the fore-edge, the text-block sound; jacket a touch sunned on the spine and at the extremities, small ink splash to the spine, text unobscured; a very good copy indeed.
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