Dear Price... Yours Sincerely, A. Conan Doyle
Dear Price... Yours Sincerely, A. Conan Doyle is an article written by Philip K. Wilson published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 3, 1992).
This article publishes and contextualizes a substantial group of Arthur Conan Doyle's letters to Harry Price, using them to illuminate Conan Doyle's Spiritualist beliefs, disputes, and activities in the 1920s. It argues that these letters are an important primary source because so much of Conan Doyle's private correspondence remains inaccessible, and it reprints them for future scholarship.
Dear Price... Yours Sincerely, A. Conan Doyle
Harry Price.
Letters from Conan Doyle in the Harry Price Collection Philip K. Wilson
Biographers of Conan Doyle frequently note the sparsity of new information on their subject. Recent insights into ACD have primarily stemmed from new interpretations of existing material rather than from newly uncovered sources. The most hopeful untapped primary resource for a would — be biographer remains Conan Doyle's correspondence. I believe that it is only through analysing his correspondence that any reliably-based reconstructed interpretation of Conan Doyle's life can be obtained. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the majority of his private correspondence remains inaccessible for researchers (1).
While I was gathering information for some forthcoming work on Conan Doyle's spiritualist crusade, I happened across a series of letters from ACD in which he discussed a wide range of his spiritualist beliefs and activities. It is of particular relevance that the letters were all addressed to the same correspondent, and that they contain ACD's opinions over the last eight years of his life. Although a few selections from these letters have previously been cited (2), writers have discussed but few issues, thereby leaving much of the correspondence unexplored. Given the relatively small amount of Conan Doyle's personal correspondence available, these letters have significant biographical importance. I hope that by reprinting these letters in toto, present and future researchers of Conan Doyle worldwide may benefit from this additional resource, particularly as a further insight into ACD's 'spiritualist career' (3).
Conan Doyle's letters were addressed to Harry Price, a charismatic contemporary known to many spiritualists, psychical researchers, magicians, and academicians. Price also gained much public acclaim through a 'career' speckled with many opportunities and ambitious undertakings. To many, Price was, like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, a private investigator, avidly attempting to uncover forgery. Yet Price's 'criminals' were frauds of Spiritualism and physical 'science', rather than the Victorian London underground Holmes confronted. Specifically, Price developed a number of protocols to test psychic claims in a more 'scientific' manner. Although not an academician himself, he established a university-based laboratory, largely from privately-raised funds. Here, at the National Laboratory for Psychical Research, Price examined many popular mediums, including Stella C. and Rudi Schneider. Additionally, he used his laboratory to 'analyse' the data he and others collected in order to explain the 'mystery' of what was reputedly England's most haunted house, the Borley Rectory.
Although Price's National Laboratory no longer exists, the collection of writings on magic and the occult he gathered throughout his lifetime remains one of the world's most valuable historical resources of works in these fields. Up an old rickety lift to the eighth floor, down several dark, dank and reputedly haunted bays of books comprising part of the closed stacks of the University of London Library, Senate House, one finds the specially secured room identified on the door plate as the Harry Price Library (4). Here, with prior permission, one may consult the arcane, obscure, and fascinating works which Price collected, catalogued, and, most importantly, used in his own researches (5).
Price travelled throughout Britain and the Continent to obtain first-hand accounts of psychical phenomena. But he also relied heavily upon hundreds of correspondents to aid his research. Thousands of the letters he received between 1920 and his death in 1948 may be found in sixteen chronologically arranged boxes atop one of the steel bookshelves at the Price Library. These letters testify that he remained in close contact with nearly all the major figures involved with producing and debunking psychical phenomena during this period. For example, there are many information- filled letters from such well-known figures as Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Harry Houdini, Upton Sinclair, J. B. Rhine, Aleister Crowley, Montague Summers, C. E. M. Joad, E. J. Dingwall, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Mann (6). He also kept up a Continental correspondence with Hans Dreisch, Baron Shrenck-Notzing, and Eugene Osty. Most pertinent to our interests, he received fifty-one pieces of correspondence from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (7).
The letters from Conan Doyle begin with his reply to Price dated 13 October 1922, and continue until his final response on 24 May 1930. Unfortunately, the correspondence is somewhat one-sided as copies of only eleven letters which Price wrote to Conan Doyle remain in the collection. Nevertheless, ACD's elicited responses quite often suggest some of the particulars Price most likely addressed. The overall content of the letters illuminates many crucial contemporary issues and provides insight into the bittersweet relationship between Britain's foremost spiritualist crusader and her pioneering psychical laboratory investigator (8).
1. Pierre Nordon was the last biographer to have access to ACD's papers while writing his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne. This work culminated in his Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, l'homme et l'oeuvre (Paris. Didier) in 1964, which was translated into English by Frances Partridge and published by John Murray two years later. Donald A. Redmond describes much of this work in his 'Scholarship Translated into Popular Biography', in Jon L. Lellenberg (ed), The Quest for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Thirteen Biographers in Search of a Life (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. 1987. pp. 125-135). Dame Jean Conan Doyle briefly addressed the problems of access to the family papers in the foreword written for Lellenberg's Quest, especially p. xiv.
2. Harry Price selected a few passages for his autobiographical Leaves From a Psychist's Case-Book (London, Victor Gollancz, 1933, pp. 89-98). Price claimed he was prompted by Conan Doyle's admission in his letter of 18 February 1929 that there are 'miscreants in the Spiritualists' fold' to set forth his own experiences in the nineteenth chapter of his Search for Truth: My Life for Psychical Research (London, Collins, 1942, pp. 201-214). Paul Tabori, Price's literary executor and trustee of the Harry Price Library, used quips from the Price letters in his 1950 biography Harry Price: The Biography of a Ghost Hunter (London, Athenaeum Press, especially pp. 66-76).
3. The Conan Doyle-Price correspondence was not cited in the two most recent noteworthy additions to Doyleana: Kelvin I. Jones' Conan Doyle and the Spirits (Wellingborough, Aquarian, 1989) and Joe Cooper's The Case of the Cottingley Fairies (London, Robert Hale, 1990).
4. Since submitting the original draft of this work, the inter-war lift has been replaced by a state-of-the-art Otis model.
5. Much of the collection is recorded in the 'Short Title Catalogue' which Price compiled and published in the Proceedings of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, Vol.1. part 2, (April 1929), pp. 67-422. See also Price's 'The National Laboratory Library in British Journal of Psychical Research (Nov.-Dec., 1927, pp.207-216). Much has been added to Price's library, including the personal papers of the psychical researcher, Dr Eric J. Dingwall.
6. Price claimed to 'cherish' many of these letters in his Search for Truth, p. 278. The Price-Houdini correspondence is presently being edited and chronicled by Frank Koval in The Skeptic, a bi-monthly journal which seeks to provide a 'rational look at pseudoscience and the paranormal in the British Isles.' Koval's first segment of The Houdini File' appeared in Vol. 4, No. 4 (July/August 1990), p. 6.
7. Thirty-six letters, eight post cards, five note cards, one note on calling card, and one telegram. Although the originals of these letters are accessible, they are normally kept in the Senate House Library strong room. As Conan Doyle rarely included the year as part of the date on his letters to Price, it is fortunate that the holograph envelopes were saved, most of which included a legible year on the postmark. Letter postage throughout these years remained one-and-a-half pence.
8. My commentary is restricted to contextualizing or clarifying such issues within ACD's letters which may not be as well known to the general reader.
Conan Doyle's first letter, written from Windlesham, Crowborough, Sussex to Price's home at Arun Bank, Pulborough, Sussex begins:
- Windlesham, Crowborough, Sussex.
- Oct. 13. 1922
- Dear Mr. Harry Price,
- I was interested to hear of your remarkable library. (8) I thought I was rich with my 300 psychic volumes. It is all one can do to keep up with the enormous output.
- I have no 'fairy photograph' book, but I have a booklet 'The Case for spirit photography' in the Press. It is in this that I show the overpowering evidence for the genuine power of Hope and also of Mrs. Deane. No reasonable man could read that book without feeling that the case is clearly made out. I have nothing to say against your actual experiment (9) - though the 24 days during which the plates were out of your actual case is a fatal blot but I do feel strongly that the popular sixpenny pamphlet designed to ruin a man who had 17 years of fine psychic work behind him, on the strength of one case which had not been submitted to criticism was very wrong. If our people (10) claimed conclusions on one case I should think it wrong, but it would not involve the ruin of any individual. The tone of the pamphlet, puns of Hope's name, etc. are all in shocking taste, which I say the more. freely as my belief is that you did not yourself write it. However so long as your name is on it we can only go for you. But I am sure your personal conduct was quite honourable — and I say so.
- However let us as I said before — keep that in its own compartment. I was glad at your success at Munich. (11) But since you pass the telekinesis, etc, you can hardly doubt Willy's (12) ectoplasm which has been so tested and photographed and as that ectoplasm corresponds very much to the photos of Eva's and others, (13) I think you will have to grant ectoplasm all along the line. The opposition to it in the face of Richet, Geley, etc. always seemed to me most impossible. But Richet's name Ectoplasm precedes by nearly twenty years Notzing's 'teleplasm'. Perhaps simple 'Plasma' will solve the difficulty.
- Davenport always advertised that he made no claims and left the audience to their own conclusions. He knew well that if, in public, he had claimed psychic power in an uncompromising way, he would have had even more persecution. Probably Willie Davenport had no psychic power at all by himself. Often it takes two to make the right mixture Hope & Buxton for example. (14)
- I fear some heat gets into these questions, but it is on our side a generous heat, for we resent that people of whose honesty we have personal experience and who are often extraordinarily unmercenary, as Hope & Eva for example, should be ridiculed in public by ignorant men like McCabe who know nothing by practical experience of these matters. (15)
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
8. Although ACD may have heard of Price's library from a number of people, the Journal for the Society of Psychical Research (20, May 1922, pp. 270-271), published an article entitled 'Mr Price's Library'. Price had offered to place his fifteen hundred item" collection, the 'Most complete library on magical literature in Great Britain, if not in Europe' on 'permanent loan' in the Society for Psychical Research Rooms at 31 Tavistock Square, London.
9. Price performed his 'experiment' upon the spirit photographer William Hope in a sitting on 2 February 1922 in which he claimed to have caught Hope substituting a different photographic plate for the one upon which Price had previously made his mark with a series of pin-pricks. He first described this case, exposing Hope's methods, in a pamphlet entitled 'Cold Light on Spiritualistic Phenomena. (London: Kegan Paul. Trench, and Trubner, 1922). The account was also reported in the Journal for the Society for Psychical Research (20, May 1922), in 'A Case of Fraud with the Crewe Circle', (pp. 271-283). Price collated three thick volumes which he titled 'Cuttings & Comments on the Price-Hope Case', which remain available to researchers in the Price Library. In addition to numerous journal and newspaper clippings beginning from the time of his sitting with Hope, there are letters from Hope, original photographs taken from plates used at Hope sittings (including those Conan Doyle included in his The Case for Spirit Photography, London, Hutchinson, 1922). Price's copy of this work is bound in Volume I of this set and contains Price's underlining and marginalia. Volume III includes many clipped reviews of Conan Doyle's The Case for Spirit Photography. Mrs Ada Emma Deane will be discussed in a later letter.
10. For ACD, 'our people' represented the spiritualist following.
11. During Price's visit to Munich in May 1922, he had investigated the mediumship of Willi Schneider (not to be confused with his brother, Rudi). Price concluded that Willi's powers were not explainable by either trickery or self deception. His study of Willi eventually culminated in 'The Conversion of Mr Price' as reported in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (17, 1923, pp. 437-445).
12. Conan Doyle provided a further account of the two illusionists, Ira and Willie Davenport in his History of Spiritualism (London, Cassell, 1926; Vol. 1, pp. 217-235).
13. Eva C. (Marthe Beraud), not to be confused with Stella C., had gained much repute as a medium from the experiments reported in the physician, Baron Freiherrn Albert von Schrenck-Notzing's Phenomena of Materialization (London; Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trubner, 1920). Schrenck-Notzing, whom Price had met in Munich, was an anti- spiritualist, yet was convinced of Eva C.'s materialization of ectoplasm. The physiologist and Nobel laureate. Charles Richert, and Dr Gustave Geley, Director of the Institut Metapsychique International (Paris) were also apparently convinced of Eva C.'s powers.
14. According to Conan Doyle. Hope claimed that his 'mediumistic powers' were stronger when he combined with those of Mrs Buxton. See ACD's The Case for Spirit Photography, p. 14.
15. Some reports claim that it was Conan Doyle who had been publicly ridiculed by Joseph McCabe in their debate over 'The Truth of Spiritualism' at Queen's Hall, London on 11 March 1920. Following the debate, McCabe further countered ACD in his Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? (London, Watts, 1920).
- Windlesham,
- December 21st, 1922.
- Dear Sir,
- This is of course merely an assertion of Maskelyne's - not a proof. (16) I believe the root of the matter, so far as I can trace it is that there was a certain Melville Fay in the States who was a notorious fake medium. Finally he confessed to being such. There was a William Fay who travelled with the Davenports. The names were confused by the British Press and it was reported everywhere that Fay had confessed that his display, and therefore the Davenports, was a swindle. The Fay incident is recounted on page 339 of Hardinge Britten's 'American Spiritualism'. (17) I believe that the secret lies there.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
16. Maskelyne was the family name of the brothers Nevil and Clive, sons of the reputable conjurer, John Nevil Maskelyne. Nevil Maskelyne clearly expressed his position on the spirit photography investigation involving Hope, Price, and Conan Doyle in his 'Spiritualism Exploited. How Fraudulent "Mediums" Prey on the Bereaved'. (London Magazine, 49, February 1923, pp. 631-636).
17. Emma Hardinge-Britten's Modern Spiritualism: A Twenty Years' Record of the Communication between Earth and the World of Spirits was first published in 1870. Although Conan Doyle later claimed this work to be 'exceedingly valuable' as a history of the subject, he stressed that it 'dealt only with the phases' of the development of spiritualism. (Conan Doyle: History of Spiritualism, Vol.1, viii.)
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions.
- S.W.1.
- July 19th, 1924.
- Dear Mr. Price.
- Your excellent article soon to appear in 'Light' shows that you are fair in your judgment of psychic phenomena. (18) Is it not a question now whether we cannot find some means by which the Hope controversy can be settled in some honourable fashion? At present it makes an open sore in the movement and greatly strains the relation between all mediums and their supporters with the S.P.R. The S.P.R. under wise guidance should regard the Psychic College as being their special most valuable laboratory instead of drifting into an attitude of hostility to it. (19)
- I will now tell you something which may possibly influence your mind. Shortly after the meeting of the S.P.R. when I brought the matter up, and when you demonstrated the holes made by your pricker, I went to Hope for a sitting. (20) While in his room I casually picked up his old dark slide and examined it. To my surprise I at once saw one of your holes. It was rather round the curve of the side at the top corner and could not have been possibly seen by any casual glance. I examined the rest of the frame but could not find any other mark.
- I said nothing to Hope but my impression from what I heard before was that he imagined you claimed to have made scratches on the woodwork and as there were none he dismissed the matter. I don't for a moment suppose he would notice this little round hole, nor would I had I not seen them when you demonstrated them.
- What I gathered was two things. One was the honesty of your own intentions. This I have never impugned, tho' I have always thought there was a plot behind you somewhere or call it an elaborate practical joke, if you will. But it is clear that if you were a party to such joke you would not need to prick holes in the dark slide so that your bona fides stands clear.
- The second point is that when you looked at the slide and concluded it had been changed because you could not see your marks the reason you did not see them was that for some reason the pricker had only acted in a place which you could only see by turning the slide slightly over. Thus your opinion was natural and honest but as it happens wrong.
- This all seems very clear and you as a gentleman would wish to atone for a wrong, while we as brother-spiritualists would not wish to press the matter or allude to it save in so far as Hope's reputation is a precious thing to us. What I suggest as a final settlement is that you should state in writing that fresh cases of Hope's powers which seem undoubtedly genuine have come to your notice (vide for example 'The Heart of a Father', Allen & Co., 40 Museum St.) (21) and that you are impressed by these, also that your attention has been drawn to a certain circumstance in connection with your sitting with Hope which would adequately explain what had seemed to you to be suspicious, though the same circumstances showed how bona fide your own action was — that under these circumstances you withdraw any imputations upon Hope's honour and would, so far as possible, withdraw the pamphlet from circulation. Such an action would, I think, redound to your own credit (save with those whose good opinion matters nothing) and would heal a breach which can in no other way be bridged.
- I hope this may commend itself to you and the shadow be thereby lifted.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
18. Price championed psychical research in 'An Open Letter to Mr Maskelyne' (Light, 44, 26 July 1924, pp. 467-469). In this 'Open Letter', Price quoted from a letter he wrote to Conan Doyle which is not among the letters presently at the library.
19. The 'Psychic College' ACD referred to was the British College for Psychic Science which was founded by Mr and Mrs J. Hewat McKenzie on 12 April 1920 as a centre of 'Instruction, Demonstration and Research in all that relates to the great subject of Psychic Research. Psychic Science, (Vol. 1, No.1, April 1922, especially pp. 104-106.) S.P.R. is the standard abbreviation for the Society for Psychical Research.
20. The small matter of a series of holes, which Price had pricked in the dark photographic plate he had given to Hope, sparked the long running dispute over Hope's reputation. A clear account of the entire Price, Hope and Conan Doyle controversy remains to be written.
21. Written by a 'Well-known Public man', this work describes the account of a boy who was drowned, and who 'returned' to his parents via a medium and was photographed by Hope and Buxton. See review in Light (46, 5 July 1924, p. 427).
- July 22nd, 1924.
- Dear Sir Arthur,
- Many thanks for your letter of the 19th inst.
- No one is more anxious than myself that the Hope case should be cleared up, and I appreciate your interest in the matter. I am glad that you realise my bona fides in the handling of the case, and only wish that the other experimenters also shared in your good opinion.
- I have always thought that Hope had genuine powers, and recent cases have strengthened that view.
- I am leaving for the Continent early on Thursday morning, and when I return I will again consider the matter. It would be nice if we could have a chat about it. It may interest you to know that to all intents and purposes the pamphlet has not been in circulation for months. (22) I am not aware of any copies having been sold during the last twelve months. Maskelyne had a few, but I cannot imagine him putting them on sale after my 'open letter'.
- I hope to be home again by August 15th.
- Yours sincerely,
- Harry Price
- Addressed to: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions.
22. The pamphlet referred to was Price's 'Cold Light on Spiritualistic Phenomena'.
- 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 23rd July, 1924.
- My dear Sir,
- Many thanks for your note. You wish me to extend my good opinion to the others but the one thing which is clear in my mind is that the packet had been tampered with. Someone must have done this. You cannot really think that it was Hewat McKenzie. (23) Therefore it seems to come down to the experimenters. But I assure you that if you can give me an alternative explanation I should eagerly examine it with the utmost good will for I have no wish to think evil of any man. But there is the fact to be surmounted.
- With best wishes for your holiday. I am off to the New Forest myself.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
23. J. Hewat McKenzie described his version of the Hope case in 'Fraud Charges in Psychic Photography. (Psychic Science, Vol.1, No.2. July 1922. pp. 169-178; Vol.1, No.3, October 1922. pp. 238-242: and Vol.1. No.4, January 1923, pp.378-394).
- Windlesham
- 22nd September, 1924
- My dear Sir,
- I have been resting in the New Forest but return home tomorrow. Hence the superscription.
- I would like you to turn your mind upon that letter I wrote you some time ago. I should much like to heal that breach and to do so without putting you into an unduly awkward position. And yet something must come from you to assuage Hope's wounded feelings. He has recently, I gather, obtained extras on a shut film. If you could examine that case and declare yourself convinced it would perhaps meet the case, and then. I think he would give you another sitting. I saw Evan Powell yesterday (24) He also said that he would gladly give you a sitting if you had cleared things up with Hope.
- The fact that your mark is on that dark slide, but so placed that you could not see it save by minute examination seems to me to help matters.
- I hear from New York but this is private that Houdini is accused of dropping objects into a medium's cabinet in order to discredit her. The facts are very clear as stated and I understand that his own Committee are against him. (25) He is a very conceited self-opinionated man but I should not have thought he would have descended to that.
- With best regards.
- A. Conan Doyle
24. Evan Powell is further discussed in ACD's History of Spiritualism (Vol.2, especially pp. 207-208).
25. Scientific American established a committee to investigate claims in which any medium produced a 'visible psychic manifestation' under test conditions in January 1923. In addition to Houdini, committee members included Dr William McDougall, Daniel F. Comstock, Walter Franklin Prince, J. Malcolm Bird, and Hereward Carrington. Bird described much of the committee's work in My Psychic Adventures (New York, Scientific American, 1923). Carrington described peculiarities in the relationship between Conan Doyle and Houdini from 1920-1924 with co-author Bernard M. L. Emst in Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship (London, Hutchinson, 1933).
- Windlesham
- September 30th, 1924.
- Dear Mr. Price,
- No, I do not take serious notice of any assertion of Houdini's about Davenport. Houdini told me of this alleged confession but I do not credit it.
- I knew one brother was dead his grave is at Sydney. I was not sure about Ira. He must be a very old man.
- I fear I am too busy to hunt up the details about the film photograph. but they are all in print somewhere for I read them. Possibly Mrs. McKenzie can give you the reference.
- I spoke to Hope last week when with every precaution I had a successful photographic sitting. He bears no animus and would give you a sitting. The difficulty would be with Mrs. Buxton, who rightly or wrongly thinks that the incident contributed to the death of her son and is rather bitter about it. However you could no doubt find some way to make your peace. Then we can all meet once more on terms of perfect concord.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- October 1st, 1924.
- I find that Ira D[avenport] died on July 8th, 1911. The older brother died long ago.
- A C D.
- Windlesham
- 12th October, 1924.
- Dear Mr. Price,
- I fear we must cross swords over the Hope pamphlet, but we can agree to keep that separate.
- Thanks for the information about Zollner. (26) It corroborates what I enclose. When I consider that Barrett (27) and other careful observers sat with Slade immediately before, and Zollner immediately after, I have very grave doubts about the Ray Lankester 'exposure' which came in between. (28) I remember that Maskelyne Senior deposed that it was a trick table, whereas we actually have the table, and it is quite ordinary. Curnow tells me that you speak of a confession from Davenport as to trickery. (29) Could you give me any reference as to that. Houdini was Davenport's great friend in his old age and I have discussed Davenport with him and he never mentioned such a thing. Sometimes however a true medium recants, as early Christians used to do, under pressure of persecution. Thus Buguet was threatened with spiritual terrors by the Archbishop of Toulouse unless he recanted his spirit photography, (30) and Miss Fox (as shown in my article in this month's 'Psychic Science') recanted when practically off her head and then recanted her recantation. (31) However I should be interested to look up the confession of Davenport, about whom I have a great deal of information.
- Yours sincerely.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
26. Johann Zollner, a Professor of Physical Astronomy at Leipzig, had supported the spirit writings of the American Henry Slade in C.C. Massey's 'Open Letter to Professor George S. Fullerton' published in Light (7, 13 August 1887, pp. 375-384).
27. Sir William F. Barrett, an eminent physicist, was also a pioneer in psychical research, and aided in the founding of the SPR in 1881-1882.
28. E. Ray Lankester, a Professor of Zoology at University College London, exposed Slade in a Times article of September 1876.
29. W. Leslie Curnow later collaborated with Conan Doyle in writing the History of Spiritualism.
30. The Archbishop's accusations of the French spirit photographer M. Ed. Buguet were. further discussed by Conan Doyle in History of Spiritualism (Vol.2, pp. 131-133). A full account of Buguet's trial is presented by Marina Pierre Gaetan Leymarie's Proces des Spirites (Paris, Se Trouve, 1875).
31. Conan Doyle. The Mystery of the Three Fox Sisters', Psychic Science (Vol.1, No.3. October 1922, pp. 212-237). Such a pattern of recantations is not unique to Margaret Fox, one of the so-called founders of modern spiritualism.
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 10th December, 1924.
- Dear Mr. Price,
- I have written such a number of prefaces of psychic books in the last 3 or 4 years that it has become just a little absurd as if my 'information' was needed and I have had to cry off. I refused my friend Mrs. Stobart last week for the same reason. (32) I am sure that you will understand.
- Yours very sincerely,
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Your 'Stella' work seems most valuable. (33) I wish you had gone to Boston to sit with Mrs. Crandon. (34) The Committee are hopelessly incompetent.
32. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart published Torchbearers of Spiritualism (London. George Allen and Unwin) in 1925. In her intriguing life story as told in Miracles and Adventures (London. Rider, 1935, p. 370), Mrs Stobart claims Sir Arthur as her 'staunch friend".
33. Price had asked ACD to write an introduction for his Stella C.: An Account of some Original Experiments in Psychical Research which was published early in 1925. Charles Reginald Haines, known primarily for his work on the religious aspects of prophecy. vaticination, and dowsing, wrote a foreword for Price following Conan Doyle's refusal.
34. Mrs Le Roi Goddard Crandon, better known as 'Margery' was a renowned Boston medium. Dr Crandon and Dr Walter Franklin Prince, a member of the Scientific American committee, both described their views of Margery's 'powers' in two chapters of The Case For and Against Psychical Belief, edited by Carl Murchison (Worcester, Mass.. Clark University, 1927, pp. 65-109 and 199-213). An earlier account of the committee's investigation may be found in 'The Margery Case'. (Light, 24 January 1925. p. 41). Conan Doyle's own account of Margery also appeared in Light (45, 14 February 1925, p. 76).
- Villa Berna,
- Grindelwald, (35)
- 20th December, 1924.
- Dear Mr. Price,
- Mumler was never exposed. (36) On the contrary he was triumphantly acquitted tho' assailed by all the forces of Prejudice in his day. One should not lightly defile the graves of dead pioneers.
- As to Buguet he was, I understand, promised pardon if he confessed and certain condemnation in this world and also (by the Bishop of Toulouse) in the next if he stood his trial. His confession was that he did it by cardboard figures, which is ludicrous to any one who studies his pictures. I think if you were as critical of exposures as of mediums, your excellent brain would come to different conclusions.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
35. Richard Lancelyn Green kindly informed me that Conan Doyle stayed in the Lunn chalet called Villa Berna, at Grindelwald, in the Bern canton of south central Switzerland on the slopes of the Lutschine valley. See Conan Doyle. Pheneas Speaks (London. The Psychic Press and Bookshop. 1927, pp. 111-115).
36. Spirit photography first became known in 1861 through the work of William H. Mumler of Boston, Massachusetts.
- Grindelwald
- 28th December, 1924.
- My dear Sir,
- Many thanks for your good humoured reply. I am so sure and so wholehearted on this subject that I daresay I seem aggressive to those who have not had the same conviction.
- At the same time when a man has been tried and acquitted of an offence I don't think it is fair to charge him with it. I am sure that Mumler was perfectly honest.
- I hear that the spiritualists have nipped in the bud one Hulme (37) who was appearing in the north as a photo medium. He was a fraud.
- I am writing an article on Houdini and the Crandon case. (38) It is a really bad incident and needs showing up. It should be the last of him as a Psychic Researcher, if he could ever have been called one.
- With best wishes for 1925.
- A. Conan Doyle
37. Possibly Howard Hulme, as mentioned in John Butler's Exploring the Psychic World (London, Psychic Book Club, 1949).
38. Margery Genuine, Says Conan Doyle', in the Boston Herald (26 January 1925), pp. 1-2, and extracted in Light (45, 14 February 1925, p. 76).
- Windlesham
- 26th March, 1925.
- Dear Price,
- J. N. Maskelyne in his reply to the challenge of the Dialectical Society said 'July 1. 1873. (39) I do not presume to prove that such manifestations are produced by trickery. I have never denied that such manifestations are genuine.' That seems final.
- I must tell you that I have now tested Mrs. D. on twenty plates in the presence of the Editor of the M. Post, the D. Express and other witnesses. (40) We have had psychic effects upon 14 out of 20, tho' only one complete face. I don't think in face of this that it will ever be possible again to question her powers. Each test has been fraud-proof.
- With best regards.
- A. Conan Doyle
39. The Dialectical Society of London had begun an investigation into spiritualism in 1869, according to Paul Tabori (Companions of the Unseen: London. H.A. Humphrey, 1968, p. 18). They issued their first Report on Spiritualism (London: Longmans, Green. Reader, and Dyer) in 1871.
40. Conan Doyle had previously defended Mrs Deane in his The Case for Spirit Photography (1923), pp. 58-61.
- Windlesham
- 1st September. 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- I have had a set of photos of the Margery ectoplasms, etc. from Dr. Crandon with leave to show them to you. I had to send them on to get them transferred to plates which can just be done before Saturday when I go to Paris and exhibit them. I will take them with me to Paris and will show them to you in their entirety either there or when we get back.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
- THE PSYCHIC BOOKSHOP AND LIBRARY (41)
- Abbey House,
- Victoria Street,
- Westminster, S.W.
- 5th September, 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- The photos are in an album which 'Margery' has presented to me, and I shall have to take it over to Paris with me. From then onwards it will be altogether at your disposal. I'll be back on the 13th. Possibly I may see you at Paris.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
41. Conan Doyle opened The Psychic Bookshop in early February 1925 to enable the 'man in the street' to more readily obtain the 'splendid literature of spiritualism. A full account of this shop and museum is among my present pursuits.
- Hotel Regina, Paris, (42)
- 7th September 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- I am sorry I did not hand over that album to you at once as it is not needed here. However it is at your disposal when you arrive. If I can help you by giving you some of the negatives which I have had taken I shall be glad to do so. I showed a few of them with my other photos yesterday but the lantern man was so bad that the effect was spoiled.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
42. Appropriately for Conan Doyle, who translated Leon Denis' work, The Mystery of Joan of Arc, the Hotel Regina, his regular Paris abode, used P.H. Rosen's rendering of Jeanne d'Arc as their letterhead. ACD added a handwritten message on the envelope informing Price: 'By the way I quote you in this month's Strand."
- Windlesham
- 17th September, 1925.
- So sorry that I forgot your films in the hurry of my departure from London. I will send them on Monday when I get up. I also hold the stereoscopic pictures at your disposal, but they are not slides.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 20th September, 1925.
- Yes, I'll send them but the stereoscopic ones are not slides. They are prints.
- A.C.D.
- Windlesham
- 23rd September, 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- You will let me have them back when you have taken your prints.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 7th October, 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- I heard some rumour that you are attacking Mrs. Deane in some forthcoming article. (43) Mrs. Deane has one or two bitter enemies, especially one, a woman. Theology may be at the root as Mrs. Deane is an excommunicated Catholic, I believe. Anyhow I warn you to be careful in the matter. The best authorities for Mrs. Deane's character are Mr. Warrick, (44) Miss Stead (45) and Mrs. McKenzie who have all been in contact with her for years. Sir Oliver Lodge expressed to me a good opinion of her.
- I want your new Society (46) to be successful and not to fall into the error of the S.P.R. which has alienated spiritualists to the point that our mediums will not have anything to do with them. This is the fruit of gratuitous and ghoulish attacks upon us. We would work in a cooperative way with your society, though I confess we are all still very sore over the Hope case which cast an unmerited slur upon 17 years of great psychic demonstration.
- However I write in friendly spirit to prevent a mistake being made by you.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
43. Price withheld publication of 'Mrs Deane, A Cat, and A Catastrophe' and it remains unpublished in typescript as pamphlet 10/34 (Harry Price Library).
44. The F.W. Warwick-Mrs Deane experiments are discussed in 'A New Investigation'. (Psychic Science, Vol.4, No.1, April 1925, pp. 27-43, and Vol.4, No.2, January 1926, pp. 112-125 and 280-285.)
45. Estelle W. Stead wrote 'Psychic Photography through Mrs Dean' (Psychic Science, Vol.3, No.4, January 1925, pp. 286-289).
46. Price had begun to organise his National Laboratory of Psychical Research in April 1925 in rooms offered him by the London Spiritualist Alliance at 16 Queensberry Place, South Kensington.
- Windlesham
- 9th October, 1925.
- Dear Mr. Price,
- There is all the difference in the world between an unsatisfactory sitting' and a 'clear cut case of trickery.' You use both expressions in your note as if they were interchangeable terms.
- I am all in favour of uncompromising honesty when a case is clear. But I know the immense harm done during the whole history of the movement by so called 'exposures' which really need just as much examination as the methods of the medium.
- It is perfectly certain that Mrs. Deane was honest in the Cushman case and in the long series of experiments carried out by Mr. Warrick. (47) Therefore it is a very great responsibility to throw doubt upon her results unless the evidence is overpowering.
- I think Spiritualists are very wrong to hush up cases which are certain, and if you could give me any particular instances I should be glad to do all I could to bring the facts to light. I went as far as I could in the case of the Falconers, for I have no absolutely final evidence and there is some in their favour. (48) Therefore I could only express my suspicion.
- I admired McKenzie's uncompromising honesty as regards Moss. (49) At each stage he said exactly what he had reason to think was true, regardless of how it affected himself. Here the exposure was entirely due to spiritualists, and so it was with Hulme in the N. of England. Another medium, Evans, is being attacked in The Two Worlds, so that it seems to me spiritualists play very fair in these matters. (50)
- I should say in answer to your question that your Laboratory would be well advised to concentrate upon positive things rather than negative. The worthless experiment is simply discarded by the chemists. Clear fraud should of course be denounced but let it be clear.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
47. See Allerton S. Cushman, 'An Evidential Case of Spirit Photography' (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 16, No. 3, March 1922, pp. 132-147.)
48. The work of 'The Falconer Brothers of Edinburgh' is briefly discussed in Psychic Science, Vol.4, No.3, October 1925, pp. 233-234.
49. Mrs McKenzie had reported George Moss' 'powers' in 'Evidential Psychic Photography" (Psychic Science, Vol.4, No.1, April 1925, pp. 44-47), and within a few months, her husband reported on 'The Moss Photographic Fiasco' in the same journal (Vol.4, No.3, October 1925, pp. 229-233). A letter from Conan Doyle is included in 'Echoes of the Moss Case' (Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 20, April 1926, pp. 248-249.)
50. Founded in 1887, Two Worlds claimed to be the 'People's Popular Spiritual Paper', and it is still in production.
- Windlesham
- 13th October, 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- I'll be at my flat or in the Shop — till Friday. I would be glad if you would let me see those letters or copies of them which spiritualists have considered to be destructive to Mrs. Deane.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
- TELEGRAM from Victoria
- 15th October, 1925.
- Price - Arrived Pulboro (stop)
- Away tomorrow Shall be shop eleven Saturday.
- Doyle.
- Windlesham
- 25th October, 1925.
- My dear Sir,
- I shall be in the shop, so far as I can see, Wednesday morning and evening and if you drop me a card I shall be happy to look into the Deane matter.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 15th December, 1925.
- Dear Sir,
- You might return to my town address (15 Buckingham Palace Mansions) the various Crandon documents which I lent you. They are 1. The album with photos. 2. The negatives. 3. The stereoscopic pictures.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 7th January, 1926.
- Many thanks for the packet safely received.
- A. Conan Doyle
- 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 22nd January, 1926.
- Dear Sir,
- I was sorry you were not in the audience last night for I hate to discuss a man behind his back. (51)
- In the short part of my speech which was in your direction I said that I wished your venture every success but that any support must mean a cessation of false attacks upon mediums, as otherwise no medium or spiritualist could possibly support you.
- I cited the present instance of your repetition in the A.S.P.R. Journal of the ancient and discredited story about Mrs. Deane. At the time I sent - as you surely know - all the heads of the athletes and cenotaph faces to Sir A. Keith who dealt with them anthoropormetrically (sic) and gave a certificate that not one was the same. (52) Why then should you broadcast this aspersion upon an innocent woman? We have condoned the Hope case but surely it should be a lesson against false accusations. I by no means agree either with your contemptuous reference to the Falconer boys. Their case is non-proven and some of their later results, one of which I showed the Company, are inexplicable.
- Let me beg you to continue your excellent Stella C. work and leave the ignoble sport of medium-baiting. When a medium is suspect the way to approach it is to inform him or her of the charges and let him or her and friends have every opportunity of defence. Then after the charge is proved let us have publicity — not before.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
51. Conan Doyle presented his inaugural speech as president of the London Spiritualist Association on 21 January 1925. Price held the official opening of his National Laboratory of Psychical Research on the same evening on the fourth floor of the same building. ACD began addressing Price's letters to the National Laboratory.
52. Sir Arthur Keith was the Conservator of the Museum and the Hunterian Professor of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons of London. Additionally, Keith appears to have played a key role in the Piltdown forgery. The most recent discussion of the forgery appears in Frank Spencer's Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery (Oxford University Press, 1990).
- 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 26th January, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- I am sorry you were not present at my remarks - I had taken it for granted that you would be when I prepared to make them. If you had been you would know that I praised your work, mentioning the Stella C. case, and you are aware that I gave it publicity in the Strand. (53) But I said that you must get out of the way of condemning mediums publicly without a shadow of proof, and surely that is not an unreasonable attitude for a spiritualist to take up. It must be the attitude of the L.S.A. if I am its president.
- You really seem to think that a mere assertion is proof, and that it is unnecessary to examine witnesses for the defence or even to ask the accused what she has to say for herself. If you have an incriminating document from Mrs. Deane let me see it and I will join you in denouncing her. I have seen her defence and her letters to that woman who attacked her and I think that her defence is at least quite a feasible one. Surely we have a right in every case to see these proofs which you say you have and to judge for ourselves how far they are conclusive.
- As to the Falconers my mind is open because I have seen some results — which you have not inspected — which I cannot explain away. Merely calling them awful swindles' does not make them so. Mediumship is an honest trade if it is honest, and that is subjudice.
- If we wished to suppress your American letter it was not to spite you but to prevent scandal about an innocent and valuable medium. That must always be our policy, united with resolute exposure of all who are proved to be wrong ones. Surely that is clear enough and quite natural.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
53. The Strand serialised Conan Doyle's The Land of Mist at this time.
- Windlesham
- 2nd February, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- I have the desire to be friends with every one in the psychic world, especially with one who holds so distinguished a position as yourself, but it is absolutely essential that our mediums should be sustained until they are proved guilty and that can only be done not on any mans 'ipse dixit' but by some authority before whom the defence as well as the accusation is heard. Otherwise there is chaos as in so shadowy and little known a subject every medium can be brought under suspicion and no firm results ever be established.
- I saw copies of the Deane letters, both mother and daughter. They were vulgar and abusive but they are illiterate people. I saw only the natural anger of people who resent an accusation — certainly no admission of guilt. I also saw an explanation written by Mrs. Deane which might well be true. I only know Mrs. P. the accuser by the fact that she once before brought a peevish and unreasonable complaint against some other people. (54)
- It was natural that I and others should try to stop such a report as that Mrs. D. was a drunkard (that was what was rumoured and what I wrote to Bird about) (55) since Warwick and Miss Stead both agreed it was not so and are in constant contact. If she drinks, which is possible, it is done very secretly and cunningly.
- But the only scientific way is to go by positives and not by negatives. The Cushman photo is, I think, about the best positive result I know. Why upset that result in peoples minds? Even if the facts were sure - which they are not they should be qualified by the remembrance of the proofs of real power in other cases.
- I wish your Laboratory success but let it be constructive. That way wisdom and our cooperation lie.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
54. Mrs A.V.E. Perryman of London.
55. J. Malcolm Bird, an assistant editor of Scientific American, was a member of that magazine's investigative committee. Conan Doyle claimed Bird was honest and clear-headed, but over cautious where psychic matters were concerned.' (Ruth Brandon: The Spiritualists; London, Wiedenfield and Nicholson, 1983, p. 185.)
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 6th February, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- You will think me persistent but I should tell you that I had a test sitting with Mrs. Deane this morning, brought my own plates, marked them at once, and got three psychic results out of four. I only keep on at you for I am anxious that you should not start your new venture with conclusions which are really quite mistaken. My medical eye searched her for any sign of the constant drinker also, but I found none.
- She is to give me for my museum the shining leather wrist guard which these Magic Circle people glimpsed in her bag and which they imagined to be a plate carrier. (56) On that occasion the man Seymour gave his word that the plates had not been tampered with, but they were all found to be marked. (57) I think there is room for a very good exposure of this Occult Circle who seem to have no scruples of any sort.
- With good wishes.
- A. Conan Doyle
56. ACD was probably referring to the Occult Committee of the Magic Circle.
57. Price claimed that Mr James Seymour, who accompanied him on his initial sitting with. Hope, had combined 'knowledge of photography and trickery [that was] so essential for an experiment of this kind.' (Journal for the Society for Psychical Research, 20, May 1922, p. 274).
- Windlesham
- 12th February, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- I send you these three photos with curious psychic markings and something like the bust of a lady over Miss Stead's head. There can be no question of the genuine character of the result. The medium was not well, and the very word 'test' seems to worry them, otherwise she might have done better. This is my fifth sitting with her of which only one other the first, four years ago was on strange plates. On that occasion I got a sort of rain effect, which seems now to have turned to snow.
- My History should be out in the third week of May. Doran Co. publish in U.S.A.. Cassells here. I begin with Swedenborg, and trace down through all the line of A. J. Davis, Edward Irving, the Shakers, the Foxes, the Davenports, Home, Slade and the rest down to our day. So far as I know nothing of the sort has been done by anyone who has an intimate personal experience of the movement from within. I have a chapter on the mediums with whom I have personally sat. I also treat the religious implications, which indeed is the only side which really interests me.
- My novel 'The Land of Mist' will cover the whole present day state of the movement. That comes out in March, Hutchinsons handling it.
- With best regards,
- A. Conan Doyle
- 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 19th February, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- I am sending three more taken yesterday under most strict conditions - on own plates and everything. Russell of the Morning Post was with me. When it was done Russell who is investigating said 'There was no possibility of deception.' I don't know yet if his extra has been recognised.
- Would you send back at once to me at Crowborough with the others.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 2nd May, 1926.
- Dear Price,
- I shall be happy to put your Journal on sale or return at the Bookshop. (58) With best wishes,
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
- By the way do you know the authorship of that 'Confessions of a Medium' book. I should be interested to know. (59)
58. The 'British Journal of Psychical Research', for one shilling.
59. The medium involved is named Thompson, and the book was published by Griffith & Farran in London, 1882. A 'reformed' fraudulent medium named Donovan appeared in at similar work of 1891 entitled Revelations of a Spirit Medium. Dingwall and Price edited and reissued this work through Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trubner in 1922.
- Bignell Wood,
- Minstead.
- Lyndhurst.
- 14th September, 1926
Dear Mr. Price,
- I should certainly come if I could be in London, but it is impossible on that date.
- Yours sincerely.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- A.H.W. (60)
60. ACD's longtime secretary, Major A.H. Wood. This is the first letter to Price from Conan Doyle at Bignell Wood.
- Bignell Wood
- 7th June, 1927.
- Dear Sir,
- A friend in America who is in touch with psychic matters writes:— 'Prince goes to Europe. His alleged purpose is to go as the only keen American, and show up old world inadequacy in research."
- It might be useful to you to know this.
- Yours sincerely,
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- A. H. W.
- Windlesham
- 5th February, 1928.
- Dear Sir,
- I don't know if the bit about the Thompsons is the reporter's addition or was in your remarks but in either case I thought it as well to tell you there was no truth in it. I sat once with the Thompsons but they were palpable humbugs. (61)
- A C D
61. ACD attended a seance with the mediums William and Eva A. Thompson in New York during his first 'American Adventure' in 1922. The events of the seance were reported by Leonard J. Hartman, a spiritualist pastor, in the New York Sunday American on 3 September 1922 under the headlines 'How the Mediums "brought back" Sir Conan Doyle's Dead Mother'. A few days after Conan Doyle's sitting, the Thompsons were arrested for fraud. Price had used this as part of his lecture The Facts, Frauds and Fallacies of Psychical Research' and in his article 'Woman Medium and Conan Doyle' in The Sunday Chronicle (12 February 1928, reverse of p. 6). See also Price's Leaves From a Psychist's Case-Book, pp. 91-94, and plate 4, a reprint of the Sunday American article.
- February 6th, 1928
- Dear Sir Arthur,
- I am in receipt of your note re the Thomsons. I showed a photograph of the Thomsons' materialising outfit, but your name was not mentioned at my lecture. I note your disclaimer.
- Yours sincerely,
- Harry Price
- [Undated]
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (62)
- As you may guess I am not responsible for the titles or the headlines, or even the photographs although I did more or less supervise the whole series. But I do want to emphasise that I am entirely friendly to you, although I sometimes think you attack me without just cause. Of course, it all arose over the Hope case.
- As regards the other side of psychical research, I keep on dinning it into the ears of the Sunday Chronicle people that the genuine phenomena are much more interesting to their readers than the tricks of dishonest mediums. (63) They now realise this, and I have stipulated that articles dealing with Stella, the Schneiders and Margery shall appear.
- Believe me, Sir Arthur, I would go a long way out of my way to be friendly with you and please do realise that I am not 'anti-spiritualistic' in any sense of the term. I hope to see you at the Laboratory one day and if we could work together in any way I shall be delighted.
- Yours sincerely,
- Harry Price
62. This letter is undated but, from the content, it must have been written before the 26 February articles appeared, specifically between the 5 and 19 February articles.
63. A series of eight articles compiled from Price's adventures 'Behind the Scenes of Spiritualism' appeared in consecutive issues of the Sunday Chronicle between 5 February and 25 March 1928. Individual titles include 'Famous Mediums Unmasked', (5 February, p. 5); 'Woman Medium and Conan Doyle' (12 February, p. 5); 'Fairy Pictures that Amaze Spiritualists' (19 February, p. 5); 'Girls who Baffle the Scientists' (26 February, p. 7); 'I Battle with the Unseen' (4 March, p. 5): 'Faked Spirit Photo Sensation' (11 March, p. 5); 'I Hunt a Ghost in a Haunted Manor' (18 March, p. 7); and '28 Phantoms at One Seance' (25 March, p.7). Two complete sets of these are available in the Harry Price Library: one in Press Cutting Scrapbook 5, pp.39-72, and another in pamphlet file 6/43.
- Windlesham
- 16th February, 1928.
- Dear Price,
- Your account of the Thompson seance was on the whole a fairly accurate one. You will find it narrated in short on p. 50 of 'Our American Adventure.' Staffanson the explorer was with me and shared our united opinions as to fraud. (64) It was almost ludicrous because my mother was very heavily built whereas Mrs. T. was a slim little woman. When T. was arrested immediately afterwards his people wanted me to testify on his behalf, and as I answered that I had satisfied myself that it was fraudulent, one of them published a long account in a N. York paper pretending that I had kissed the figure, and all sorts of nonsense. That was their revenge but I of course at once denied it, citing my witnesses.
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
64. Vilhjalmur Stefansson had gained fame for his explorations of the Northwestern Territories in the Canadian Arctic between 1913 and 1918. His well-known writings include My Life with the Eskimo (London, Macmillan, 1913); The Friendly Arctic (London, Macmillan, 1921); and Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic (London, G.G. Harrap, 1939).
- February 17th, 1928.
- Dear Sir Arthur,
- Many thanks for your letter of the 16th inst. When I wrote the article, I had in front of me, the New York paper you mention which, as you say, makes you appear as if you were thoroughly deceived by the Thompsons, but having your disclaimer in mind, and weighing the evidence carefully, I came to the conclusion that you realised at the time that the Thompsons were fraudulent. The Thompsons' medium- ship is so very apparently a fake that I am certain they cannot have deceived you in the way the American article implies.
- Yours sincerely.
- Harry Price
- PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
- February 20th, 1928.
- Dear Sir Arthur.
- I was glad to receive your letter of the 18th inst. I will turn up your account of the Thompson sittings and exposure: I do not think your version of it has had proper publicity.
- Re my article. The Editor of the Sunday Chronicle came and asked me if I would contribute a series of articles to his paper. I told him I had neither the time nor the inclination to do so at the present juncture. He than asked me if I could supply him with matter from previous articles of mine so that he could write up the articles. I consented and handed him a bundle of American Journals and other papers and a number of photographs. etc.. I impressed upon him the fact that the articles must be dignified, well written, and that they must state only facts. I particularly emphasised the point that if they had to mention your name in my articles they were not to attack you in any way, nor were they to ridicule spiritualism. I pointed out that it is so easy to attack people, and as I had a sincere regard for your work I did not intend that they should print a lot of rubbish in their paper.
- I did not see the proof of the first article which, as it happened, was not so bad. I was abroad at the time. I saw the proof of the second article and to my annoyance there was a great deal in it about you and the Thompsons which was not at all complimentary to yourself. I tore the proofs up and insisted on their re-writing the article. This they did with the result you know. I also made several alterations in the article that was published yesterday where they talked of you and the fairies. So you see, Sir Arthur, I have been to some trouble in getting my facts right and that I have gone out of my way to avoid hurting your feelings. All the above information, of course, is strictly confidential.
- Harry Price
- February 22nd, 1928
- Dear Sir Arthur.
- I learn with regret that although I am trying to make peace with you, at Jensen's (65) reception the other night you referred to the 'anti spiritualistic articles' which you alleged I am writing, although you did not mention my name. (66) I reiterate that the articles are not anti spiritualistic; on the contrary I have gone out of my way to placate the spiritualists who are my very good friends. I think I conveyed this fact to you in my last letter. Mosley is a horse of another colour altogether. (67)
- Yours sincerely.
- Harry Price
65. J.S. Jensen was president of the Danish Psykisk Oplysnings Forening (Society for the Promotion of Psychic Knowledge).
66. In his first 'Behind the Scenes of Spiritualism' article (5 February 1928. p.5). Price claimed that 'Though I am not a spiritualist ... I wish to make it clear that I am not ... taking the field as an enemy of spiritualism.
67. Journalist and author Stanley Mosley received and wrote up Frederick Tansley Munning's confessions of 'How I Produced "Spirit" Voices' in consecutive Sunday issues of The People from 5 February to 29 April 1928
- THE PSYCHIC BOOKSHOP
- 22nd February, 1928.
- Dear Price,
- It is all very well to say that you are not 'anti-spiritualistic but your record is all the other way. You put a slur upon Hope's twenty years of splendid work, and though I have never put the fraud down to you none the less it was for you to denounce it when it was clearly shown. and so to undo some of the unjustice which had been done.
- Then with no experience of Mrs. Deane you denounced her on the strength of a single complaint from a woman, with no reference to the fact that both Sir Oliver Lodge (68) and I, to say nothing of hundreds more, had tested and endorsed Mrs. Deane. Where is the sense of impartiality of that? Now you tell the story of the Cottingley photographs in a way which give no idea at all of the real facts. (69) It is the same with your allusion to exposed' mediums, such as Mrs. Mellon (70) and Evans. (71) The former was undoubtedly a great medium, if testimony goes for anything, and if the exposure was an Australian incident, it was denounced at the time as a frame-up. I hold no brief for Evans but it should have been stated that Miss Rosita Forbes (72) and I and many others were in his favour. I have to remonstrate on these points for I am looked upon as in a way the spokesman of the Cause, and when under a form of science such utterly loose unscientific statements go forth I am bound to remonstrate. It is the more serious when you are in a sense the guest of a spiritualistic body.
- Yours faithfully,
- A. Conan Doyle
68. Like Conan Doyle. Lodge's prominence commanded much support for spiritualism. Paul Tabori provided a brief sketch of Lodge as one of the Pioneers of the Unseen (London, Souvenir Press, 1972. pp. 61-97). Lodge summarised his 'Experiences in Psychical Research' in his autobiography Past Years (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1931, pp. 270-313).
69. 'Fairy Pictures that Amaze Spiritualists' in the Sunday Chronicle (19 February 1928, p. 5).
70. T. Shekleton Henry, an Australian architect, provided a full account of his exposure of Mrs J.B. Mellon, nee Fairlamb, in Spookland (Sydney, W.M. Maclardy, 1902).
71. Amazing Exposure of Famous Spirit Medium' read the headlines of 31 October 1926 Sunday Chronicle's account of the exposure of Harold Evans. Members of the Chronicle's committee who found Evans fraudulent were Professor Julian Huxley, Professor A.M. Low, and Mr J.C. Wilson. Other committee members not present at the exposure of Evans include Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, Miss Tennyson Jesse, Mrs Rosita Forbes, Mr Aldcus Huxley, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
72. Mrs Rosita Forbes, an explorer and author, gained latter fame for her Women Called Wild (London, Grayson & Grayson, 1935).
- February 23rd, 1928
- Dear Sir Arthur,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 22nd inst. I repeat I am not anti-spiritualistic, and have gone very considerably out of my way to prevent those articles hurting your feelings or those of my other spiritualistic friends. I am afraid you are not very grateful. As regards Hope, I have never yet seen any evidence that the plate was faked by another person.
- It is absolutely incorrect to use a mild term that I denounced' Mrs. Deane. I merely sent in a report of an attempt on the part of Mrs. Deane to trick. The report is fully documented and authenticated. You have no right to say that I denounced her when you have never seen the article. Curiously enough, a short time ago the New York people wrote and asked me what they could do with the article which is still in type. Mr. Warrick recently wrote me and said that the trickery of Mrs. Deane is so very apparent that it almost ceases to be trickery. And Mr. Warrick ought to know. As regards the Cottingley photographs, very little was said about these and the words are not mine neither are the titles or clause headings. Mrs. Mellon may have been a great medium but she was exposed by a responsible person. I doubt whether Evans has, or had any power whatever. I have been promised the white garment which was seized by the Sunday Chronicle committee. So far as I am aware, every statement made in the Sunday Chronicle is a fact - or we believe them to be so.
- Yours sincerely,
- Harry Price
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 24th February, 1928.
- Dear Price,
- I assure you that you deceive yourself on this point. Save for David Gow I have heard nothing but indignation at the tone of your articles. (73)
- Yours faithfully,
- A. Conan Doyle
73. David Gow was editor of Light, the journal of 'Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research'.
- Windlesham
- 24th February, 1928.
- Dear Price,
- Your longer letter to hand. No, we are certainly not grateful. All this sewage is most distasteful and it is an abuse of words to say you are not 'anti'.
- Let me see an article of yours full of the successes of spiritualism to counterbalance all this stuff and then I would admit you were impartial, tho' even then I would resent slurs upon the characters of innocent people.
- You know as well as I do that the Hope package was tampered with. There are the marks to prove it. Then who did it? It was for you who broadcasted the false charge to find out. You have not done so and so you became a partner in the rotten business.
- As to Mrs. Deane you know nothing about her. When you have spent as many plates under test conditions as I have done you may be entitled to an opinion. I saw the so-called 'documents'. They were beneath contempt.
- A man like Moseley only attacks a person whom we all agree to be a rascal. You attack people, some of whom are dead, without the least evidence and in the face of a lifetime of good work. I think it is a dangerous game for I can recall Harold Ashton, Houdini and many others who have come to grief over it. Reasoned criticism by all means - but this is different.
- Yours faithfully.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 26th February, 1928.
- As a postscript to my letter may I refer you to January number of 'Psychic Science' where Mr. Warrick gives a most convincing example of Mrs. D.'s powers. (74) It is clear that you misunderstood him.
- A C D
74. 'Supernormal Photography' in Psychic Science (6, January 1928, pp. 283-285.)
- Bignell Wood
- 5th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I observe in the Revue Metapsychique that you still repeat the lie - which has been shown to you already to be a lie — that I was deceived by the Thompsons of New York and that I kissed the hand of my alleged mother. (75) I have written to the Revue to show that it is a lie, quoting M. Steffanson the arctic explorer who was there at the time and to whom I said that the whole seance was fraudulent. Hoffman's article was written in revenge hoping to take in foolish persons as he seems to have done.
- Meanwhile I cannot see why you should occupy rooms by the courtesy of the L.S.A. and still indulge in false and clumsy ridicule of their President. (76) The situation is an impossible one and I have asked them to find a way out.
- Yours faithfully,
- A. Conan Doyle
- As to what you say of Powell & others they are no doubt of opinion after the Hope case that it is they who may be caught by some trick. (77)
75. Quelques trucs favoris de mediums fameux' (Revue Metapsychique, July-August 1928, pp. 362-375).
76. Price received a letter dated 27 September from Miss Mercy Phillimore, secretary of the L.S.A. stating that Conan Doyle 'Lodged formal complaint and protest against the contents and tone of certain of [Price's] writings concerning himself personally, particular mediums, and Spiritualism generally. Regarding the National Laboratory's 'over-generous terms of tenancy', the Alliance suggests that it would not be more than a reasonable return if such grounds of complaint should for the future be avoided.' Price responded the same day claiming that he had never written "against" Sir Arthur C. Doyle and never once... mentioned his name on the platform or in print except in a very friendly manner.' He adds that the L.S.A.'s complaint stemmed from the 'protest' of Conan Doyle, a man who was 'thoroughly deceived by a fraudulent medium and who now dislikes the episode referred to."
77. Elsewhere, Conan Doyle claimed that at the time of writing (1926). Evan Powell had 'the widest endowment of spiritual gifts of any medium at present in England." (History of Spiritualism, Vol.2. pp. 207-208.)
- 7th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 5th instant. I do not know what you mean when you say that I 'repeat' the alleged lie re the Thompsons as on February 16th last, writing to me on the same subject you say: 'Your account [in the Empire News] of the Thompson seance was on the whole a fairly accurate one.'
- As a matter of fact. I never mention your name in my lectures. The article about which you complain was translated from the original MS. of my lecture prepared a few years ago. Actually, my lecture at the Institut was delivered extempore.
- The account of the seances recorded in my MS. was taken from the report (signed) by Dr. Leonard J. Hartman (you inaccurately give the name as 'Hoffman' in your letter) who related in the New York Sunday American for September 3rd, 1922 exactly what happened. The incidents occurred in his house and are confirmed by Mr. Brownell, president of the First Spiritualist Church of New York. These gentlemen distinctly state that you were much overcome with emotion and that you kissed your 'mother's' hand. If you will write and tell me that Dr. Hartman and Mr. Brownell are liars, I will publish it.
- But as you know quite well (as proved in my article in the Empire News, and the letter you wrote me acknowledging this) out of consideration to yourself, I have always refrained from recounting this episode. It crept into the Revue by accident. But as you have forced my hand in this matter, I am sending Dr. Hartman's signed article, with a copy of this letter, to Dr. Osty for publication in the Revue Metapsychique. (78)
- Yours faithfully.
- Harry Price
- Honorary Director.
78. Dr. Eugene Osty was director of the Institut Metapsychique.
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 10th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- It does not make matters better that besides writing these false statements you have been uttering them in lectures to foreigners. Instead of trying to justify them in the Review you would have been better advised to have apologised and withdrawn them.
- Hartman whom you quote is not a Doctor but a dentist, and is the one in the circle whom we suspected of being the confederate. None of the four of us, myself, my wife, my secretary or Mr. Steffanson took the proceedings seriously for a moment, and I gave my opinion of them at the time. I also wrote them in my book which was written up practically as a daily diary.
- Mr. Brownell is, so far as I know, an honest man and I should like to know your authority for stating that he supported the false and malicious account published by Hartman. I had no speech with Brownell after the sitting but he wrote later to express his regret. Your own common sense should have told you that an experienced spiritualist does not show emotion in front of a very questionable materialisation.
- You cannot expect to publish false and libelous statements about people and that they will receive them with patient acquiescence.
- Yours faithfully,
- A. Conan Doyle
- It is impossible that you never mentioned my name in the lecture if you recounted the episodes as reported in the Revue.
- 11th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 10th instant. Forgive my saying so, but I think you are extremely rude in contradicting a deliberate statement which I made in my last letter.
- I reiterate that the MS. of my lecture was prepared four or five years ago when the account of the Thompsons' seance was incorporated. This lecture has been given twice only, once in London last spring (when Captain Gow [Neil] took the chair) and once abroad; viz., in Paris last July. On neither occasion did I mention your name or the Thompson affair as the whole matter had been deleted from my MS.
- As a matter of fact, and as I told you in my last letter, the Paris lecture was given extempore.
- When Dr. Osty lectured for us last March he took away with him a carbon copy of my lecture containing the Thompson incident, and this is the MS. which was used in the translation which appeared in the Revue. If I had seen a proof of this article, I would have deleted the reference to yourself, as I did in the Sunday newspaper.
- I really do not know why I am going to this length in explaining what happened as I indicated in my last letter to you how the reference crept into the Revue. So if there is any apologising' to be done, it is from you that the apology should emanate.
- Mr. Brownwell's evidence was published with Dr. Hartman's article in the American paper and, to the best of my belief, no correction from Dr. Hartman, Mr. Brownell or yourself ever appeared in this paper. (79)
- Yours faithfully,
- Harry Price
79. Leonard J. Hartman, 'How the Mediums "Brought Back" Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's dead 'Mother' and how they were later Unmasked by an unsentimental Policewoman and Detective,' in the American Weekly' section of the New York Sunday American (3 September 1922, pp.4-5).
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 12th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- A man must be held responsible for what appears over his signature. If he has made a mistake he apologises publicly and withdraws. Those are two self evident propositions.
- This absurd story (I say 'absurd' for how could any one kiss a flesh and blood hand and think it was ectoplasm) was started out of personal malice. It is obviously repeated by personal malice for what possible object could such a repetition have save to hold me up to ridicule and to weaken any authority I may have upon the subject.
- I have sent to Light the letter which I addressed at the time to the paper which published Hartman's story. (80) I had no knowledge as to whether they put it in it is quite common, as you know, to make false assertions against spiritualism and to suppress the corrections. But my book appearing at about the same time was in itself a correction, and the account in it has, so far as I know, never been questioned.
- Yours faithfully.
- A. Conan Doyle
80. 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mr. Harry Price. A Correction.' (Light, 48, 15 September 1928. p. 437.)
- 13th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th instant. I have also perused your communication to Light' which I regard as thoroughly misrepresenting the case and a tissue of falsehoods. If you are going to attack me in print and on the platform, I will retaliate and you will be beaten at your own game. (81)
- I am tired of reiterating that, in consideration for your feelings, I have never said or written anything to hold you up to ridicule though I have had sufficient cause. Only yesterday a representative of a big group of American newspapers called upon me and asked me what I thought of you. I was tempted to tell them but again let you down lightly and told them not to say anything. What amazes me is how a man in your position can be so thin-skinned; even your own followers regard most of your doings and sayings as a joke. If only you could have heard some of the remarks (made by spiritualists) passed on your lecture last Sunday evening you would, I think, attempt to be a little less foolish in public.
- Yours faithfully.
- Harry Price
81. 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & Mr. Price. A Reply'. (Light, 48, 22 September 1928, p. 449.)
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 14th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I am quite accustomed to the attacks of foolish people and one more or less matters nothing. It is only when falsehoods are stated that I am compelled to protest both in private and public.
- Yours faithfully,
- A. Conan Doyle
- 14th September, 1928.
- Sir,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 14th instant (do you mean the 13th?) which I received this morning. I defy you to point to one 'falsehood' I have stated; on the other hand, your letter to 'Light' is full of- to put it very mildly indeed - spiteful inaccuracies. I am giving this same lecture again in Vienna and Copenhagen and in future I shall read out Dr. Hartman's version of the Thompson story and let my hearers judge for themselves.
- Yours faithfully,
- Harry Price
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 4th October, 1928.
- Dear Sir,
- I regret that I shall not be able to accept your kind invitation.
- Yours faithfully.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 18th February, 1929.
- Dear Price,
- You would find my own account of the matter written practically at the time and endorsed by the name of Steffanson in my book Our American Adventure'.
- I do hope that behind the scenes of spiritualism you have found some noble and beautiful things consolation for sad hearts and hope for those who were hopeless. Pray do not dwell always on what is negative and sordid. I confess that it makes me restless when I see Moseley and you both members of the L.S.A. and therefore within our camp - giving only stories of miscreants who have traded on a holy cause. It is all very well to warn the public' but if some writer did the Church of Rome from inside, and had nothing to tell but adulteries and robberies by Priests it would not be excused on the ground that it was to warn the public. No doubt later in your series you will restore the balance.
- Yours sincerely.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Dictated
- 15, Buckingham Palace Mansions
- 29th November, 1929.
- Dear Price,
- I have always been in complete sympathy with your constructive work. It is only on the destructive side that I have differed. Then I have felt, as you probably feel at present, about Maskelyne. By the way I have written to-day to the 'Daily Mail' to give my opinion of the whole Maskelyne family. I wonder if they will put it in. (82)
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
82. Noel Maskelyne challenged Rudi Schneider to produce spirit phenomena on stage at the London Coliseum on 10 December 1929. Conan Doyle defended Schneider against Maskelyne's attacks in 'Sir A. Conan Doyle Replies. Tests of Rudi Schneider.' (Daily Mail, 4 December 1929, p. 8.)
- December, 1929. (83)
- Card from Sir Arthur with cutting. (84)
- That film is doing great work. (85)
- A C D
83. In January 1930, Conan Doyle resigned from the SPR. I am presently pursuing his association with the SPR.
84. In Richard Watts, Jr's 'Sight and Sound' column in the New York Herald Tribune, 11 September 1929.
85. Price later made a talking film on 'Psychical Research' in 1935.
- Windlesham
- 9th May, 1930.
- Dear Price,
- As my health is bad, I am turning the Bookshop into a company. (86) It is in the interest of all psychic researchers to keep the place going, as it keeps the subject before the eyes of the public in a very prominent position.
- If, then you could give me the names of any of your people to whom it would be good to send a prospectus I should be greatly obliged.
- With best wishes,
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
86. Elsewhere, Price claimed that the bookshop had been a 'nightmare' to Conan Doyle. Situating it opposite to Westminster Abbey was, so Price told ACD, the 'wrong end of Victoria Street for the sale of psychic literature.' Price recounts that Conan Doyle lost £700 one year in his bookshop venture. Yet, Price frequently reiterated how his suggestion to Conan Doyle to establish the May 1925 'Exhibition of Objects of Psychic Interest' into a 'permanent exhibition or museum' was a 'success'; museum admission charge was one shillings. (Price: Leaves From a Psychist's Case-Book, pp. 95-96). Conan Doyle's plan to form a company was not realised before his death.
- Crowborough
- 23rd May, 1930.
- Dear Price,
- I am sending out my circulars, so if you have any likely names I'd be glad to have them.
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- 24th May, 1930.
- My dear Price,
- Many thanks for your little list. It will be most useful. I will see that a prospectus is sent to you. Also a picture(!)
- With decent luck the place will pay its way soon. It is the very heavy rent which with rates comes to £750 which has held it back.
- With best wishes,
- Yours sincerely,
- A. Conan Doyle
- Windlesham
- August 9th, 1930
- Dear Mr. Price,
- I write to thank you and also the President, Council and members of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research for your kind sympathy with us in our great sorrow.
- The tributes of love and admiration for my beloved husband which have poured in from all quarters have helped and comforted us more than I can say.
- Yours sincerely,
- Jean Conan Doyle
- Dear Lady Doyle,
- 16th June, 1933.
- I am about to publish a volume of my 'Reminiscences' and included in them is an entirely sympathetic chapter on the late Sir Arthur.
- I should like to reproduce that very clever and rather pathetic cartoon which Sir Arthur kindly sent me and which he autographed for me.
- You will remember that this cartoon was reproduced in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research soon after Sir Arthur's death. So it has actually been published.
- I shall, therefore, be glad if you will kindly give me permission to reproduce this picture.
- With kind regards,
- Yours sincerely.
- Harry Price
- Windlesham
- 20th June 1933.
- Dear Sir,
- No, I cannot possibly give you permission to publish a cartoon of my husband. It is typical of the mentality which you have displayed towards my husband that you should wish to publish a cartoon of him, instead of a true portrait.
- Yours faithfully,
- J. Conan Doyle
- 22nd June, 1933.
- Dear Lady Doyle,
- I am in receipt of your letter of the 20th inst. You appear to have entirely misunderstood my request; perhaps I did not make myself clear. A few months before Sir Arthur died he sent me a drawing which he did, called 'The Old Horse' which he himself calls a cartoon. As you are the owner of this copyright, I wrote to you asking if I could reproduce it in my very sympathetic chapter on your husband. If I had wanted to publish a 'cartoon' as suggested by your letter, there would have been no need to seek your permission.
- As I pointed out in my last letter 'The Old Horse' was published some years ago in the Journal of the American S.P.R. and I thought it would be rather nice to reproduce it in this country.
- Yours sincerely.
- Harry Price
- Windlesham
- 23rd. June 1933.
- Dear Sir,
- Lady Conan Doyle has asked me to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 22nd. She cannot give you permission to use the sketch which was done by Sir Arthur and called the 'Old Horse, the copyright of which she holds.
- Yours truly,
- R. Smith
- Secretary.
- 3rd July, 1933.
- Dear Lady Doyle,
- I have just returned from abroad and have found your letter of the 23rd ultimo awaiting me.
- In a previous letter you made some gratuitous remarks concerning my 'mentality'.
- When I pointed out to you that your remarks were based on a mis-reading of my letter, I fully expected an apology - to which I was clearly entitled. I am amazed that this apology has not been forthcoming.
- Yours very truly,
- Harry Price
- Honorary Director.
In summary, these letters substantiate several points about Conan Doyle's involvement in spiritualism.
1. ACD's persistent defence of William Hope and Mrs. Deane confirms his immense regard for spirit photography. Such concern about these individuals supports my earlier argument that he considered spirit photographs to be the most significant materialistic affirmation of spiritualism. (87) The letters also corroborate Price's claim that ACD and his friends 'abused' him for years' over his unrelenting opposition to the Hope case. (88)
2 Conan Doyle's dissatisfaction with the S.P.R. was not entirely founded upon his bitter disagreement with Theodore Besterman's 1929 review of Gwendloyn Kelley Hack's Modern Psychic Mysteries. Rather, these letters indicate he expressed frustrations about the S.P.R. in 1924, some six years before he resigned from their membership. Presently, I am pursuing further research into Conan Doyle's involvement with the S.P.R., and the strength of his allegiance to their stance of psychical research.
3. Conan Doyle was well-read in the pro-Spiritualism literature from the earliest involvements of the Fox sisters through the 1920s. Indeed, the Conan Doyle-Price letters reflect the authors' opinions on the most current controversial issues discussed in the spiritualist periodical press, especially Light and Psychic Science.
4. Conan Doyle alludes to his distrust of Houdini's tactics, reinforcing the Ernst and Carrington account of the 'Strange Friendship' between Houdini and Conan Doyle.
5. ACD's expressed support for Price's laboratory investigation into matters of psychic science suggests that he held at least a passive interest in establishing controlled conditions under which spiritualists' claims could be tested. Yet, his quarrel with Price over retaining space for the National Laboratory begs questions over the extent he supported or actually wished to impede these laboratory investigations. Perhaps Price summed it up best that, together with Oliver Lodge, Conan Doyle would be 'Known to posterity as propagandists and writers rather than investigators'. (89)
6. Although Conan Doyle and Price exhibited persistence and, at times, stubborn obstinacy, in their letters, they never completely severed their correspondence. However, an underlying tone of suspicion suggests they were cautious, perhaps uncertain, as to how far the other could be taken into confidence. (90) Conan Doyle held particular regard for Price's published support of Spiritualism, suggesting that ACD viewed his opponent as a significantly influential figure in his own field. And both ACD and Price expressed their views over particular controversies in rather circumspect and polite terms without explicitly denigrating each other's respective beliefs. This level of toleration would probably prove useful for mediating parapsychologists' vs. sceptics' disputes today.
As a single resource, these letters are of limited biographical value. Yet, they offer more hints into the day-to-day struggles ACD faced than do his full-length biographies. Thus, like the stage directions written into theatrical scripts, personal correspondence enables observers (readers) and performers (biographers) to progressively follow the story line in a more definite, and hopefully a more realistic manner.
One additional 'communication' between Conan Doyle and Price must not be overlooked. On 7 October 1930, three months to the day after ACD's death, Price revealed one last 'message' from Conan Doyle in his National Laboratory of Psychical Research through the mediumistic aid of Mrs Eileen Garrett. Price publicly relayed this 'message' in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine. (91) Unlike his attempts to debunk earlier psychical phenomena according to his scientific method, when pressed to describe this 'communication'. Price provided a rather ambiguous answer. After ascertaining that Mrs Garrett was not cheating, he claimed that it was just possible that the views expressed by the entity called Conan Doyle were emanations from the brain of the living Conan Doyle which had in some way become crystallised and had been 'picked up' by the medium in the trance state, just as one tunes in to a radio set.' (92) This theory, according to Price's later account, created 'considerable discussions' over the next few years. (93)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Price remain intriguing figures in the fields of spiritualism and psychical research respectively. I hope the letters contained herein will aid future researchers in further unravelling Conan Doyle's and Price's complex characters.
87. Philip K. Wilson: 'I have seen the "dead" glimmer: Arthur Conan Doyle's Scientific Approach to Spirit Photography', Baker Street Miscellanea. 62. (Summer 1990), p. 10.
88. Harry Price: Confessions of a Ghost Hunter (London, Putnam, 1936. p. 169.)
89. Harry Price: Fifty Years of Psychical Research. A Critical Survey (London. Longman and Green, 1939, p. 308.)
90. ACD's suspicions were well founded. For contemporaneous with Price's letters to Conan Doyle, many spurious comments about Conan Doyle appear in his other correspondence. For example, J. Malcolm Bird wrote to Price in January 1927 claiming that Dr Crandon's 'hero-worship of Doyle is on such a firm basis' that he gave up all attempt to make [Crandon] see that Sir Arthur is not a little tin God on wheels. In a reply to Bird in the following year, Price's only defence of Conan Doyle was his claim that ACD must be 'going funny in his head'. And in November 1928, Price wrote to Dr W. F. Prince of the Boston Society for Psychical Research claiming that since Conan Doyle is 'out of the way', having resigned 'all his various positions in psychic research', we shall see some changes in England soon among the psychic societies'.
91. 'The Return of Conan Doyle' (Nash's-Pall Mall, 86, January 1931, pp. 10-13, 91-94.) The article also appeared under the title 'An Authentic Interview with Conan Doyle from Beyond', in the January 1931 American Cosmopolitan (pp. 26-27, 114-116.) Price reprinted this account in his Leaves from a Psychist's Case-Book (pp. 99-117).
92. Nash's, p. 94.
93. Price, Leaves from a Psychist's Case-Book, p. 115. Elsewhere, in his Fifty Years of Psychical Research, p. 153, Price claimed this last 'conversation' with Conan Doyle was 'intensely interesting, but not very convincing'.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
