If the title sounds interesting, you'll like it. ( )

My first paranormal book written and researched by someone out of the field but by a history and theory of photography professor. (book could have used some illustrations of the camera, and the process photographers used at that time). Kaplan does a wonderful job pf pulling together primary sources but he does little to analyze them. The real interesting part is how was Mumler able to continue this farce? Was he a believer or a crook at the beginning of his career? Later on it was obvious he knew he was fooling people.

I haven't read a history book written in this style before, Kaplan gives a overview of each chapter in the Intro then each chapter "is" the primary source. First newspaper articles about Mumler's business, then a excerpt from P. T. Barnum (a wonderful writer I need to read more by him), about what he calls "humbugs" he has a whole chapter on Mumler.

The next chapter is Mumler's personal history, full of second hand accounts of people who recognized the "forms" in the photographs. Mumler gives away his crime with his account of photographing "Mrs. Lindall" who came in with a heavy veil only removing it when he took the picture. 3 days later when the portraits were ready, her husband and son appear in the photo, when she could not recognize the son, Mumler's wife (who was a medium and healer) snapped into a trance and came through as Mr. Lincoln and their son. Mrs. Lincoln is said to have wept at "finally having contact with her family". She said she hid herself so no one would tell Mumler who she was in this "test". What the account leaves out is Kaplan publishes a picture taken of Mrs. Lincoln taken my Mumler's studio when she was the first lady. Now 7 years later, Mumler does not recognize her? And given that 3 days pass from the time she comes to Boston and the pictures are delivered he has not figured out who she is and obtained a picture of Lincoln to appear behind her, the son's picture was obscure. Mrs. Lincoln from what I read believed that everyone made contact with her family, she was very credulous and unlikely to say that "finally someone has made contact."

Oddly, the best clearest spirit photographs were the ones that he had time to print and deliver. When the sitter was a skeptic and carefully watching, the images were vague or not at all. Humm

The prosecuting attorney's summing up is the next chapter. Gerry gives his amazing long summing up, you would think he was prosecuting a murder not a $10 breach of contract case. Gerry goes on for pages about Christianity and how it has no room for Spirit Photographs or this new religion of Spirituality. Gerry also shows 9 methods that Mumler could have used to fake the portraits (illustrations would have been helpful Kaplan), Gerry's argument is that we don't know which method Mumler used but probably he used a combination of all 9.

The next chapter is again about the media and the attention they gave to the case. The last chapter is an essay by Kaplan giving us the historical theory behind ghosts in the past.

This is a story that should be told, thank you Kaplan for bringing it to our attention and the sources together. Now someone else should write the story.

29-2008 ( )