Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism

Weisberg, Barbara

ISBN 10: 0060566671 / ISBN 13: 9780060566678

Published by HarperCollins, New York, 2004

About this Item

336 pages. Illus., notes, selected bibliography, index, front DJ flap price clipped. Signed by the author. Is it really possible to talk with the dead? As much as modern America is familiar with mediums, this question still generates passionate opinions from believers and skeptics alike. So one can only imagine the stir that the Fox sisters created in 1848 when they claimed to hear a ghost rapping on the wall of their Hydesville, New York rental house bedroom. The sisters soon discovered that the ghost would tap answers to specific questions.

Seller Inventory # 45692

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism
• Publisher: HarperCollins, New York
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060566671
• ISBN 13: 9780060566678
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition. First Printing.
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: very good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

March 1848. Mysterious knocks are heard in a little house in rural New York, throwing the community into turmoil. Are the children who live there -- Kate and Maggie Fox, sisters aged eleven and fourteen -- making the raps to trick their parents? Or are the girls mediums for otherworldly messages? From a battery of strange sounds and the excitement they create, modern Spiritualism is born.

Talking to the Dead: Kate and Maggie Fox and the Rise of Spiritualism follows the remarkable story of the Fox sisters, who were catapulted to fame after word spread that they communicated with spirits. Within a few years, tens of thousands of Americans were flocking to seances. An international movement developed. Yet forty years after those first knocks, the sisters shocked the country by denying that they had ever been in contact with the dead. Shortly after, in another stunning reversal, they changed their story again and reaffirmed their faith in the spirit world. Were the Fox sisters con artists who had taken a childhood prank too far? Or were they really in touch with "voices from beyond"?

In this riveting biography, Barbara Weisberg traces not only the lives of Kate, Maggie, and their family -- including the girls' shrewd and charismatic sister, Leah -- but also the social, religious, economic, and political forces that helped shape the Spiritualist movement. A vivid, compelling overview of a remarkable period in U.S. history, Talking to the Dead provokes questions about belief systems, the power of celebrity, the wish to reconcile faith and science, and the timeless quest for knowledge about life after death.

About the Author

Barbara Weisberg has also written about the Fox sisters for American Heritage magazine. Formerly a freelance producer whose work has appeared on cable, network, and public television, she lives with her stepchildren and husband, writer and producer David Black, in New York City.