{"id":11904,"date":"2022-07-04T07:30:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T07:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/in\/?post_type=product&p=11904"},"modified":"2022-07-04T07:33:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-04T07:33:05","slug":"sir-arthur-and-the-fairies","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/in\/sir-arthur-and-the-fairies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Arthur and the Fairies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the spring of 1920, at the beginning of a growing fascination with spiritualism brought on by the death of his son and brother in WWI, Arthur Conan Doyle took up the case of the Cottingley Fairies. Mary Losure explores how the creator of Sherlock Holmes became convinced that the ‘fairy photographs’ taken by two girls from Yorkshire were real.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In the winter of 1920, readers of the popular British magazine the Strand<\/a> found a curious headline on the cover of their Christmas issues. \u201cFAIRIES PHOTOGRAPHED<\/em>,\u201d it said. \u201cAN EPOCH-MAKING EVENT DESCRIBED BY A. CONAN DOYLE.<\/em>\u201d The Strand\u2019s readership was well acquainted with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; most of his wildly popular Sherlock Holmes stories had appeared for the first time in its pages. The great man\u2019s claim that fairies \u2013real fairies \u2013 had been photographed in the north of England by two young girls was greeted with wonder, but unfortunately for Conan Doyle, most of it was of the \u201cwhat can he be thinking?\u201d variety. How could the creator of the world\u2019s most famous, least-fool-able detective have convinced himself that \u201cfairy\u201d photographs were real? Let us proceed, Holmes-like, to examine the question.<\/p>\n

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Mistake Number One: Misinterpreting the Evidence<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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To his credit, Conan Doyle<\/a> made what was (to him) a thorough, scientific, step-by-step investigation of the \u201cfairy\u201d photographs. For his first step, he consulted experts at the London offices of the George Eastman Kodak Company. They examined prints of the first two \u201cfairy\u201d photos and told Conan Doyle they could find no evidence of photo-doctoring; still, they insisted someone who knew enough about photography could have faked them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In Conan Doyle\u2019s mind, that ruled out the two Yorkshire village girls who had taken the photographs, Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths. \u201cI argued that we had certainly traced the pictures to two children of the artisan [working] class, and that such tricks would be entirely beyond them,\u201d he wrote. Working class girls, surely, would not be able pull off such a hoax\u2026.<\/p>\n

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Mistake Number Two: Our Man Not on the Spot<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Conan Doyle\u2019s next step was an on-the-scene investigation \u2013 but Conan Doyle himself did not go. Instead, he enlisted a far-from-impartial surrogate — an ardent believer in fairies named Edward Gardner — to carry out the mission. Gardner had already talked to several people who had assured him the girls had played with fairies and elves since babyhood. He had already written to Elsie Wright\u2019s mother begging her to get her \u201clittle girl\u201d to take more photos. \u201cI know quite well that fairies exist,\u201d Gardner wrote in one of several letters to Elsie\u2019s mother, \u201cand that they are very shy of showing themselves or approaching adults, and it is only when one can obtain the help of their \u2018friends\u2019 that one can hope to obtain photographs and hence lead to a better understanding of Nature\u2019s ways than is possible otherwise.\u201d Gardner explained to Elsie\u2019s mother that he had long been anxious to obtain photos of \u201cfairies, pixies, and elves, and if possible of brownies and goblins.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So it is perhaps not surprising that when he actually visited the Wright family in the Yorkshire village of Cottingley, Gardner found no reason to suspect there was anything amiss in the photographs. He talked to Elsie\u2019s parents, who (not knowing themselves whether or how the photos had been faked) gave him sincere and honest answers. They told Gardner all they knew: that the two girls had borrowed Elsie\u2019s father\u2019s camera and gone down to a little hidden valley behind the house where the younger girl, Elsie\u2019s cousin Frances, believed she saw fairies. The girls had returned a just short time later with the negative that Elsie\u2019s father developed in his home darkroom: the first fairy photo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"