SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE! (Valid until three months after
publication.) Since its advent in the 1840s, modern spiritualism
has been a topic of popular interest and critical scrutiny.
Spiritualism gained increasing prominence in the second half of the
nineteenth century, and developed as a religious movement with no
defining creeds or formal doctrines, beyond the belief that the
dead survived in spirit form and could communicate with the living.
Scholars have noted its philosophical origins in the writings of
Emmanuel Swedenborg; considered its rise against the backdrop of
Darwin's theory of evolution and the accompanying crisis in faith;
examined the fascination of celebrated believers such as Elizabeth
Barrett Browning, William James, and Arthur Conan Doyle; explored
its potential in the context of gender and sexuality; charted its
investigation by the Society for Psychical Research; and identified
key periods that mark a rise in spiritualist activity. The history
of spiritualist belief and practice has been the subject of
extensive debate (see, for example, Routledge's eight-volume
collection, The Rise of Victorian Spiritualism (2001)
(978-0-415-23640-9), edited by Bob Gilbert). Similarly,
considerable research has been devoted to the question of
Spiritualism and gender (explored in the Routledge/Edition Synapse
two-volume collection, Women, Spiritualism, and Madness (2003)
(978-0-415-27633-7), edited by Bridget Bennett, Helen Nicholson,
and Roy Porter). Complementing those earlier collections, this new
four-volume set demonstrates spiritualism's hugely significant-but
hitherto often neglected-contemporary engagement with questions of
race, eugenics, and the body, and with anti-spiritualist critique.
Moreover, as spiritualism is commonly identified as a predominantly
Victorian-and western-phenomenon, little has been done better to
understand spiritualism in its global and temporal contexts.
Furthermore, while numerous studies of spiritualism in canonical
Victorian literature exist, the movement's own rich literary output
and its relationship with the non-spiritualist gothic remain
underexplored. Indeed, despite the explosion of scholarly interest
in modern spiritualism across a wide range of disciplines, almost
none of the movement's key philosophical, literary, political, and
medical texts are currently in print. The learned editors of this
collection have remedied these imbalances and Spiritualism,
1840-1930 offers access to a wide range of materials from an
important period in spiritualism's history, including previously
unpublished material relating to Arthur Conan Doyle's investment in
spiritualism and transcriptions of the Henri Louis Rey seances in
New Orleans (the only entirely African-American nineteenth-century
spiritualist circle whose records have been preserved). The
collection focuses on key topics and situates inaccessible primary
sources alongside better-known works to posit their importance in
the development of spiritualism as a social, cultural, and
transatlantic phenomenon. Making readily available materials which
are currently very difficult for scholars, researchers, and
students across the globe to locate and use, Spiritualism,
1840-1930 is a veritable treasure-trove. The gathered materials are
reproduced in facsimile, giving users a strong sense of immediacy
to texts and permitting citation to the original pagination. Each
volume is also supplemented by a substantial introduction, newly
written by the editors, which contextualizes the material and
steers readers towards significant secondary sources. And with a
full index and a detailed appendix providing data on the provenance
of the gathered works, the collection is destined to be welcomed as
a vital research and reference resource.
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