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THE COMING OFTHE FAIRIES
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
MR. E. L. GARDNER
Member of the Executive Committee of the Theosophical Society (England)
[Frontispiece
THE COMING OF
THE FAIRIES
BY
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Author of "The New Revelation," "The Vital Message,"
"Wanderings of a Spiritualist"
ILLUSTRATED FROM
PHOTOGRAPHS.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921, 1922,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY.
THE COMING OF THE FAIRIES.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
PREFACE
This book contains reproductions of thefamous Cottingley photographs, and givesthe whole of the evidence in connection withthem. The diligent reader is in almost asgood a position as I am to form a judgmentupon the authenticity of the pictures. Thisnarrative is not a special plea for that authenticity,but is simply a collection of factsthe inferences from which may be acceptedor rejected as the reader may think fit.
I would warn the critic, however, not tobe led away by the sophistry that becausesome professional trickster, apt at the gameof deception, can produce a somewhat similareffect, therefore the originals were producedin the same way. There are few realitieswhich cannot be imitated, and the ancientargument that because conjurers ontheir own prepared plates or stages can producecertain results, therefore similar results[vi]obtained by untrained people undernatural conditions are also false, is surelydiscounted by the intelligent public.
I would add that this whole subject of theobjective existence of a subhuman form oflife has nothing to do with the larger andfar more vital question of spi