Eighth impression. Hutchinson & Co. London. sn. [1922]. 155pp. Psychic photograph frontispiece. Original blue cloth, faded gilt lettering to spine. William Thomas Stead (1849-1912) British newspaper editor and pioneer of investigative journalism which paved the way for the modern tabloid press in Britain. At The Pall Mall Gazette he used journalism to influence government policy. Matthew Arnold called it "The New Journalism". Stead was on his way to New York at the request of the President Taft to address a conference at Carnegie Hall when he died in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. During dinner he had recounted the tale of cursed mummy in the British Museum. He was last seen clinging to a raft with John Jacob Astor, having helped others and given away his own lifejacket. Stead wrote and published two articles of premonition in 1896 and 1892, both of which have gained greater significance in the circumstances: "How the Mail Steamer went down in the Mid Atlantic by a Survivor" and "From the Old World to the New" about a ship, the Majestic, Captained by Edward Smith, which collides with an Iceberg. Edward Smith was the Captain of the fated Titanic. In 1909 he wrote "Let us imagine the grave as if it were the Atlantic Ocean" "When in April 1912 the Titanic sank in mid-ocean and my father passed on to the next world, I was on tour with my own Shakespearean Company. Amongst the members of that Company was a young man named Pardoe Woodman, who on the very Sunday of the disaster foretold it as we sat talking after tea. He did not name the boat or my father, but he got so much that pointed to disaster at sea and the passing on of an elderly man intimately connected with me, that when the sad news came through we realized he must have been closely in touch with what was about to happen. I mention this incident because it formed the first link between my father and Mr. Woodman, and as it is largely due to Mr. Woodman's psychic powers that my father has been able to get through the messages which are contained in this book."
First edition. Quality Press. London. 1946. 176pp. Original blue cloth, black lettering to spine. Sunned to spine and edges. Toning to endpapers (The previous owner lived in China and Burma) Robert Thurston Hopkins (1884-1958) Writer and ghosthunter. Sir Arthur Eggar of Burma (1877-1947)
First edition. Printed privately for the author by S. H. Watkins and Sons. Great Malvern, Worcestershire. 1983. Large Octavo. 55pp. Original blue paper cover. Stapled binding. Small crease and marginal stain to lower corner of upper cover. A nice crisp copy. Rev. Joseph Stanley Leatherbarrow. (1908 - 1989) MA, PhD, FSA, FRHS. of the Rectory, Martley. A collection of twelve short stories by Leatherbarrow. From the introduction he writes, "I have sometimes been asked "Are they true"? I can only reply that they are partly autobiography, partly local history and partly sheer invention". A reprint was brought out by Ash Tree Press in 2007. Very scarce. One copy only help worldwide: in the British Library. This work is dedicated "For my friend Leslie Halliwell who combines an enthusiasm for the world of spirits with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the world of films. In turn, Leslie Halliwell was to dedicate "Seventeen Supernatural Stories" to Leatherbarrow the following year: 'These stories are dedicated to STANLEY LEATHERBARROW who introduced me to M. R. James and is no mean ghost writer himself'. He later wrote "Do I believe in Ghosts? I think I once saw one, but that was more than forty years ago, oddly enough in the eighteenth century rectory then presided over by Stanley Leatherbarrow, who not only introduced me to the works of M. R. James but himself became no mean writer of supernatural tales and helped to inspire these further attempts by his old friend and pupil." Leslie Halliwell, July 1986
First edition. John Russell Smith. London. W. B. Brodie. Salisbury. 12mo. viii, 203pp. Folding map frontis., folding astronomical plan, folding plan of Avebury. Half morocco, spine in six compartments, with gilt double fillet compartments, embellishment and gilt lettering. Gilt rules to boards. All edges gilt. Silk bookmark. Marbled endpapers. Light spotting to free endpapers. Early handwritten bookseller's catalogue description of this and the cloth copy loosely inserted. A most handsome copy. Edward Duke (1779 - 1852) of Lake House, Wilts. M.A., F.A.S., F.L.S., Antiquary. Friend of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Richard Fenton, William Cunnington et al. "An astronomical planetarium - a stationary orrery - devised by the ancient astronomers of the land."
First edition. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. London. 1915. Small octavo. 86pp. Original pictorial card boards, cracked and chipped to top and base of spine. With original publisher's adverts on the rear. Offsetting to free endpapers. London Standard March 21st 1986 clipping: letter from Rita Tait, instigator of the Arthur Machen Society loosely inserted. Arthur Machen (1863-1947) Author, mystic, supernaturalist, psychogeographer, magic realist. Born Arthur Llewelyn Jones in Caerleon. The origin of the legend of the Angels of Mons. Machen maintained it was a fiction.
