The Future Life: as Described and Portrayed by Spirits, through Mrs. Elizabeth Sweet

Blind embossed cloth 8vo, 403pp. An account of over 50 spiritual encounters with figures from Voltaire to Joan of Arc, mediated by Mrs. Elizabeth Sweet, and compiled by her husband after her death. Sweet developed from spiritual inquisitor to medium in the stewardship of Mrs. Leah Fish, the eldest of the renowned Fox sisters whose performances played a crucial role in the popular fascination with Spiritualism.

Introduction by Judge J. W. Edmonds, contributed at the behest of Gilbert Sweet to lend credibility to the accounts. Edmonds was a skeptic who witnessed the reserved Sweet develop boisterous spiritual faculties, “in a manner that was very repulsive to [him],” which ultimately convinced him of the sincerity of her mediumship. A Good copy, rebacked in sympathetically colored cloth with original spine label laid on. Blind stamp of the Chicago Religio Philosophical Publishing House, else unmarked. A few pages have some wear at the edges, but the textblock as a whole is tight and clean. Scarce.