To the 19th century mind, the camera captured
truth. You placed an object in front of it, clicked the button, and it created an
indelible record of reality…or so it seemed. Yet in 1917, two young girls
produced photographs which claimed to document fairies. If you are curious, click here to see the photos and find out more about the Cottingley fairies.
In an era where Photoshop makes edits invisible, the story
of the Cottingley fairies holds great fascination. To our sophisticated 21st
century eyes, the series of fairy photographs is obviously faked, yet the girls
persuaded one of the great minds of the 19th century, Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle.
Conan Doyle, who wrote one of the most skeptical anti-heroes
of all time, Sherlock Holmes, was infamous in his own lack of skepticism. He
believed in mystics and communications with his dead son through séance. Conan
Doyle published a public defense of the photographs in the noted The Strand magazine, much to embarrassment
of the girls’ parents.
The Fairy Ring has all kinds of engaging little details, like the fact that Frances was originally from Cape Town, South Africa. Or the fact that 15 year old Elsie was rather older than Frances, at nine. The language is delightful and reminds me strongly of Frances Hodgson Burnett – my favorite author who writes children’s books that are more than children’s books. It would be the perfect book to read aloud, as the prose has a charming freshness that lends itself to speaking.
The book has excellent high-quality scans of the
photographs, which in itself is a pleasure to those who love Edwardian
photography. There is a lot of argument about the final photograph in the Cottingley
series. Fairy enthusiasts point out how different it is from the others, which clearly contain paper cut-outs. Here is the photo. The flanking fairies look like paper, but the central creature has a magnificent translucence – what do you think?
You should read this book if you love fairies and wish there was a touch more magic in the world.
Pre-order
The Fairy Ring; also
available as an audio book.
Candlewick Press, 2012. Thanks to @quellelove for
the fantastic recommendation and ARC .
Great review Anna!
ReplyDeleteThanks Raquel! You knew exactly the kind of book I like to read! :)
DeleteFairies (or faeries) are just simply splendid! Great review Anna. You always bring whimsy to my life :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Angie. I try to bring a little whimsy to everyone. It's a hard line to walk being whimsical vs. being childish, but I hope I manage.
DeleteWell done Anna. The whole Cottingley story is awesome. Loved reading this :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by again, Rod. I have always been deeply interested by the story - it has all the elements of a great real life fairy tale. Losure pulled up some documents that even I hadn't seen - it was so neat!
DeleteYour blog makes me feel so fancy.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite interesting to see how, erm, gullible people used to be! It makes you wonder what stuff that makes us gape now will be laughable to people a hundred years from now.
I think people will be amazed that we had to have external computers to communicate. No doubt everything will be part of our cloud consciousness at that point. Fortunately, by then I will likely be buried with the fairies and not care a bit ;)
DeleteAwesome review! I know someone who would be all over this book. Better go tell her.
ReplyDeleteI gave you a Shout-Out on my blog today! :)
Thank you for the kind mention on your blog, David. I'm definitely glad we found each other's work.
DeleteI recommend The Fairy Ring highly.
What's great about the book is that the author really draws you in. Especially after Conan Doyle and other grown-ups get involved, the story becomes suspenseful and compelling. I promised my daughter I would read for only 20 minutes and had to keep on reading because we both needed to know happened to the girls in the end.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear from someone else who has read it, Gwenyth! I know, I read it in one sitting because even though I knew the ending I still had to know. :)
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