This episode, we are joined by Dr Merrick Burrow, Head of English and Creative Writing at the University of Huddersfield, to talk about The Cottingley Fairies: A Study in Deception, an exhibition Merrick has curated for the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds.
You can read The Coming of the Fairies here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Coming_of_the_Fairies
The episode can be heard here: http://doingsofdoyle.podbean.com/.
Timeline of the Cottingley Fairies
Three years later, in 1920, the girls’ mothers attend a
lecture on fairies at the Theosophical Institute in Bradford, after which knowledge
of the photographs spreads through theosophist circles.
In May 1920, Edward L. Gardner, General Secretary of the English
Theosophical Society, uses copies of the negatives in his public lectures in
London. News of the images reaches Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
In July 1920, acting for Doyle, Gardner visited Elsie in Cottingley
and returned convinced of the 'entire genuineness' of the photographs. After
the visit, Gardner and Doyle sent Elsie and Frances a Cameo camera each.
Three more fairy photographs were taken in the late summer
of 1920. Independent expert Harold Snelling declared the images 'entirely
genuine' and the photographs 'unfaked.'
The first photographs were published in Conan Doyle’s
article ‘Fairies Photographed’ in the December 1920 issue of the Strand
Magazine. Two photographs from the second followed in the article ‘The Evidence
for Fairies’ in the March 1921 issue.
Conan Doyle expanded on the original articles and published
correspondence with advocates and opponents in The Coming of the Fairies (Hodder & Staunton, September 1922).
The publications sparked a furious public and private
exchange over the validity of the photographs and more fundamental issues of
belief, spirituality and the supernatural.
Sixty years later, in the early 1980s, Frances and Elsie
admitted the fairy photographs had been a hoax. Elsie had drawn and cut out the
delicate fairy images, which were then attached to their surroundings using
hatpins. Frances, however, insisted that the photograph of the ‘fairy
bower’ was genuine.
Related Conan Doyle works
 |
| E.L. Gardner |
The Case for Spirit Photography (1922) https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Case_for_Spirit_Photography
The History of Spiritualism (1926), https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_History_of_Spiritualism
Next time on the Doings of Doyle…
We travel to the Franco-Prussian war for a Gothic treat, ‘The Lord of Château
Noir.’ You can read the story here: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Lord_of_Ch%C3%A2teau_Noir
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to our sponsor, Belanger Books: www.belangerbooks.com, and to our
patrons on Patreon.
Image credits: Thanks to Alexis Barquin at The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopaedia
for permission to reproduce these images. Please support the encyclopaedia
at www.arthur-conan-doyle.com.
Music credit: Sneaky Snitch Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under
Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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