Title: COCK LANE AND COMMON-SENSE
Author: Andrew Lang
Publisher: Longmans, Green & Co.
City: LondonYear: 1894 (First Edition)Binding Style: Hardcover
Pagination: 357, with publisher advertisements at endIllustrated: No
Book Details + Condition: First edition from 1894 of Andrew Lang's COCK LANE AND COMMON-SENSE. Publisher's original maroon cloth, title in gilt on front cover and on spine. Book is
in very good condition, with slight shelf wear: wear to corners and bottom of front board; some smudges to boards; pages are crisp and clean. Still includes the publisher's (Longmans, Green & Co) original insert. This fascinating collection of Lang’s essays on
spiritualism reflects his long and passionate interest in the subject, one that
prompted him to lead the field as “one of the founders of the study of
‘Psychical Research” (Encyclopedia Britannica). A version of his paper
on the Cock Lane Ghost was read before the Society of Psychical Research in
1894 and he became its president in 1911. “On the question of the real
existence of the reported phenomena hereafter chronicled,” Lang writes,
“…the writer has been unable to reach any conclusion, negative or affirmative…
Now, if there be but one spark of real fire to all this smoke, then the purely
materialistic theories of life and the world must be reconsidered.” Contents include: Savage Spiritualism; Ancient Spiritualism; Comparative Personal Research; Apparitions, Ghosts, and Hallucinations; The Second Sight; A Modern Trial for Witchcraft; and much more.
