The Coming of the Fairies (annotated)

The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 9. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena and wrote the present text, The Coming of the Fairies. Contents: How the matter arose -- The first published account, Strand Christmas number 1920 -- Reception of the first photographs -- The second series -- Observations of a clairvoyant in the Cottingley Glen, August 1921 -- Independent evidence for fairies -- Some subsequent cases -- The theosophic view of fairies.