Item Details

London, C.W. Daniel, 1913, Softcover

First Edition, Very good

7" x 5", 251 pp + index, with frontis portrait, in original printed wrappers. Some chipping and light creasing to wraps, internals sound and clean. 

Rare first edition of this privately published book of spirit writing, which was re-issued in 2013 under the title Messages from the Unseen -- the Edwardian Afterlife Diary of Emma Holden. The book was compiled by Birmingham (UK) paint manufacturer Arthur Holden, whose adult daughters Edith, Evelyn, and Effie received messages from their deceased mother, Emma, during seances held at the family home between 1904 and 1909. Edith Holden (1871-1920) was a professional artist who achieved posthumous fame in the 1970s, with the republication of her Nature Notes for 1906 in facsimile form as The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.  Evelyn was also a professional illustrator, and Effie was a published poet.  All members of the family were committed spiritualists and socialists.  According to scholar Sarah Edwards, "the figure of the absent wife and mother, Emma, was named [in this book] as the 'inspirer' of most messages and she recounted her new life in spiritual spheres that were governed by socialist principles. [In the Preface], Arthur emphasized the messages' origin within the 'sacred precincts of home,' and signaled his decision to publish them as potentially transgressive. However, he justified the publication on the grounds of the messages' 'ethical teaching'" ("Cooperation and Co-Authorship: Automatic Writing, Socialism and Gender in Late Victorian and Edwardian Birmingham," in Women and the Occult (Routledge, 2011).  Two copies located in OCLC, both in England.