(Lansing, Mich. Press of Robert Smith Printing, 1902). Likely first edition, one of two published dated 1902; OCLC also notes one with a Chicago imprint. 8vo, original green cloth, gilt lettering, 170 pages. Inscribed and signed by Bronson on the front free endpaper. A lengthy allegorical verse tale, replete with... More
London: Longman and Co., 1878, First edition. 8vo, original brown cloth over card stock, gilt lettering, [4], viii, 91, [1], 2 pages. From the lawyer and publisher Cox (1809-1879) comes this hybrid mystic-scientific examination of sleep and dreaming. "Cox was also a believer in spiritualism and published his ideas in... More
Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina: Palmetto Press, (1912). First edition. 8vo, original printed wrappers, 119 pages. To call John Armstrong Chaloner (born Chanler, 1862-1935) an eccentric author is somewhat to understate the case; scion of a wealthy Virginia family and worth some $4 million by the time he hit adulthood, his... More
(Chicago: The de Laurence Co., 179 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago 1, Illinois), [ca. 1940s]. First edition? Unbound pamphlet, approx. 7.5 x 8 inches, [4] pages. Illus. “And why, and how, have the Hindus, who are the greatest and most subtle of the Aryan races, developed such marvelous Spiritual and Occult... More
San Francisco: Buettner Press, (1952). Stated second edition. 8vo, original blue tape cloth spine, printed boards, xvi, [2], 160 pages pages. Halftone frontis portrait in red, illus. in the text, occasional pages on green stock. With an autograph note, presumably in Buettner’s hand, below the copyright statement, “2nd edition 1955.”... More
New York: S. T. Munson, [1859]. First edition. Self-wrappers, 7 x 5 inches, 21, [3] pages. “We may be overtaken in our work, not be the slight evil of death, but by insanity, by paralysis, by softening of the brain, by worse than that—a man may become a Roman Catholic... More
Southampton, Mass. Josiah A. Gridley, 1854. First edition. 8vo, original embossed brown cloth, gilt lettering, 202, [1] pages. Accounts of spiritualist communication and occasional angelic intervention. Gridley (1802-1876) was a physician who had been part of the Perfectionist experiment at Brimfield (not without scandal) and developed into something of an enemy to Noyes. More
Detroit: Lyman E. Stowe, 1915. First edition. 8vo, original gray cloth over limp boards, black lettering, 253, [1], 55, [3], 10 pages (including ads and testimonials for Stowe’s works). Extensively illus. “So common was it for men to have presentiments of their own death, that nearly every old soldier can... More
Boston: Published by John P. Jewett and Company, 1855. First edition. 8vo, original brown or purple cloth, xvi, [1], 466 pages. The American philosopher turns his attention to Andrew Jackson Davis, Swedenborg, and the phenomenon of clairvoyance. Crabtree 746: “When Mahan undertook to investigate spiritualism, he expected to find that... More
Springfield, Mass. Star Publishing Co., (1885). First edition. Original green wrappers printed in red, 6.13 x 4.75 inches, [2], 108 pages. From the Spiritualist publishing house comes this obscurely reforming novel—Elsie Ainslie, the innocent daughter of the wealthy but loveless marriage-match of a New York banker comes to her grandmother’s... More
Boston: Pubished by Bela Marsh, 1856. First edition. 8vo, original blind-stamped brown cloth, 328 pages. "Yes; in the almanac language, 'look out about those days' for carriages and travelling-saloons on country-roads--sans horses, sans steam, sans any visible motive-power--moving with greater speed and far more safety than at present. Carraiges will... More
Boston: n. p., 1876. First edition. Large 8vo, original green cloth, gilt lettering, 391 pages. Frontis. “The following revelations of the second advent of Jesus, the Saviour of man, give a statement of his labors among the spirits of the dark sphere, where order has been established [etc. etc.]... More
![Plain Guide to Spiritualism . . . [caption title]. Spiritualism, William White, Co, Prospectus](/pictures/thumb/18956.jpg?v=1555947536)
Boston: Wm. White & Co., [1863]. First edition. Broadside, 13.5 x 9.75 inches. A fine, detailed, and ephemeral promotional broadside for Uriah Clark’s Plain Guide to Spiritualism, a proposed large octavo volume of superior type, paper, and binding, from the press of the stalwart spiritualist publishers who here make much... More
Santa Rosa, California: Published by the Author, Fountaingrove, 1891. First edition. 8vo, original blue cloth, gilt lettering, 314, [2] pages. “In the early spring of 1886 a phenomenon of planetary respiration was observed in a rural locality especially consecrated to the social service of the Brotherhood of New Life.” The... More
Detroit: Published by the Author, [ca. 1911?]. First edition. 12mo, original printed pictorial wrappers, [4], 72, [5], 1, [1] pages. Illus. A characteristically eclectic and eccentric work from the Detroit Civil War veteran, visionary, poet, and professional astrologist Lyman E. Stowe (1843-1919), with much in the way of self-promotion for... More
New York: M. L. Holbrook & Co., (1889). First edition. 8vo, original dark terra cotta cloth, gilt lettering, 250, [1] pages. “There is a Psychic Ether, related to thought, as the luminiferous ether is to light. . . . All the so-called occult phenomena of mesmerism, trance, clairvoyance, mind reading... More
