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I'd heard of the Cottingley Fairy pictures before but it was only after reading The Cottingley Secret that I learned about this book.

This was written when the events were happening, at a time when belief in fairies was more accepted. It was a time when people wanted to believe in fairies and magic, so when two little girls gave them pictures claiming to prove their existence, they didn't get thrown out as some type of hoax. Rather, it was almost as hard to believe that the pictures were faked as it was to believe in fairies.

After all, this was a hundred years ago, these girls did not gave an easy way to alter a photo. It was also said to be their first time taking a picture.

Arthur Conan Doyle very much believed in fairies and other similar life forms.

My edition of the book did not actually have the pictures. I've seen them online but the book definitely could have benefited from their addition.

This is quite a short book too.
It was definitely interesting to know that everything in the book was real people's accounts of what happened.

I'd definitely recommend reading The Cottingley Secret. It's fiction but it's fantastic. Having this book on hand is a good idea, I enjoyed reading this afterwards. ( )

I found this book at a thrift store - and only bought it because Sir Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote it. Without knowing much about the Cottingley Fairies, or much about Mr. Doyle - this book seemed so out of place with the authors belief - but doing a bit of Googling and reading the introduction, you find out exactly what Conan Doyle believed - which wasn't the overly logical world of Sherlock Holmes.

I'm not going to rate this book - because, as a book, its a hodgepodge of tin foil hat folks - who I can't determine if they really believe what they say, or are scammers. But, the book is interesting historically, into how the spiritual movement viewed the world. There is a lot of woo-woo stuff in here, and the author very much believed it. For example, fairies were some sort of insect, and that a fairy "cocoon" or nest was caught in film.

The story of the Cottingley fairies (not the story in this book) is quite hilarious - two girls, borrowed a camera, took a picture of fairies cut out from paper, which got noticed by grown men in the spiritualist movement. This book is written so seriously, Doyle so much wants to believe in this that he glosses over the holes in the theory, while trying to put a "scientific" veneer over the story.

The book itself is not that good - at times, to rambly - other times, the language gets in the way. But, it is a fascinating look into the belief in fairies and Conan Doyle.

Highly recommended if you like odd history, or are into the life of Conan Doyle.

I thought this worth a look for curiosity's sake to see what led the great author to be convinced that fairies really existed. This short book focuses on: whether the Cottingley photos could have been tampered with; accounts of alleged sightings around the world by various people; and, most strangely, another spiritualist's views on how fairies fit into natural processes like pollination, and discussion of different races and colours of fairies in different parts of the world. While he is hugely sympathetic, Doyle does not come right out and say fairies definitely exist; but, it is certainly the outcome that he wishes to be given just that final evidential push to become, in his view, a certainty. 3/5 ( )

Just when you think fairies might actually be real ... ( )