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The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World
The enchanting true story of a girl who saw fairies, and another with a gift for art, who concocted a story to stay out of trouble and ended up fooling the world.
Frances was nine when she first saw the fairies. They were tiny men, dressed all in green. Nobody but Frances saw them, so her cousin Elsie painted paper fairies and took photographs of them “dancing” around Frances to make the grown-ups stop teasing. The girls promised each other they would never, ever tell that the photos weren’t real. But how were Frances and Elsie supposed to know that their photographs would fall into the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And who would have dreamed that the man who created the famous detective Sherlock Holmes believed ardently in fairies — and wanted very much to see one? Mary Losure presents this enthralling true story as a fanciful narrative featuring the original Cottingley fairy photos and previously unpublished drawings and images from the family’s archives. A delight for everyone with a fondness for fairies, and for anyone who has ever started something that spun out of control.
Back matter includes source notes, a bibliography, and an index.
Frances was nine when she first saw the fairies. They were tiny men, dressed all in green. Nobody but Frances saw them, so her cousin Elsie painted paper fairies and took photographs of them “dancing” around Frances to make the grown-ups stop teasing. The girls promised each other they would never, ever tell that the photos weren’t real. But how were Frances and Elsie supposed to know that their photographs would fall into the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And who would have dreamed that the man who created the famous detective Sherlock Holmes believed ardently in fairies — and wanted very much to see one? Mary Losure presents this enthralling true story as a fanciful narrative featuring the original Cottingley fairy photos and previously unpublished drawings and images from the family’s archives. A delight for everyone with a fondness for fairies, and for anyone who has ever started something that spun out of control.
Back matter includes source notes, a bibliography, and an index.
193 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2012
28 people are currently reading
697 people want to read
About the author
Mary Losure
6 books25 followersMary Losure writes innovative nonfiction (and the occasional fantasy) for kids.
Her latest book, ISAAC THE ALCHEMIST: SECRETS OF ISAAC NEWTON, REVEAL’D, has received three starred reviews.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 244 reviews
March 7, 2012
I've been besotted with the Cottingley Fairies story for years and years, even using it to frame a speech on literary fairy tales I gave long ago. I've done a ton of research on it thinking I'd write a book about it one day, but now Mary Losure has written that very book. Darn you, Mary! Just kidding as this is a terrific book. Sympathetic, fascinating, well-researched (and I should know:), clear, and an all around great read. More about it on my blog here.
April 7, 2020
Elsie loved a good laugh, she loved to paint, and she didn’t like being teased. Needless to say, when her young cousin, Frances, was being mocked by her family after she told them that she had seen fairies down by the stream, well it was enough to make Elsie’s blood boil. But when they had the audacity to begin teasing HER, that simply was the last straw! Elsie thought up a clever plan to show the adults that fairies were in fact real and she would do so by offering up photographic evidence. Little did Elsie know at the time that her fairy photos would someday attract the attention of someone who really did believe in spirits and fairies. Someone who her own father admired and adored. Someone by the name of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Author Mary Losure said that her idea for "The Fairy Ring" came after a visit to an independent bookstore in Minnesota. There she came across "The Coming of Fairies" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—a book built around the photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths and the implications behind their much-believed authenticity. Frances wrote her own book, "Reflections on the Cottingley Fairies", a memoir that was completed by her daughter, Christine Lynch, after her death. Looking at the original photos now, people would obviously see them as the forgeries they were. But back in 1917, a time when the news cycle was dominated by the First World War, the demand for legitimacy may not have been on the forefront of anyone’s mind.
It is remarkable how two girls—ages 15 and 9—were able to pull off what would later be known as one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century. What is even more astonishing was their ability to wholeheartedly ensnare one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How could one of the greatest authors of his time, and a medical doctor to boot, have been so gullible? Doyle was a scientific man, but he was also spiritual and the death of his son, Kinglsey, in 1918 caused him to fully embrace spiritualism and the idea of spirits and otherworldly beings. With that in mind, it’s no wonder why in mid-1919, when the Cottingley fairy photos were made public, that Doyle was quick to embrace the idea that fairies were indeed real, thus bringing some semblance of validation and comfort to a still grieving father.
Elsie and Frances’s story is as fascinating as it is unbelievable. Remarkably, both women kept their secret long enough so that many reputations, including that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were kept intact and untarnished. It was a hoax that would transcend all others and spawned simply because one talented and easily offended teenager simply didn’t like being teased. While Elsie eventually admitted to revealing the truth, Frances—even up to her death—never wavered from her belief in fairies. Even Sherlock Holmes may have been inclined to believe in the Cottingley fairies for he once said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Are fairies impossible? I, for one, would like to believe that fairies exist, for in the grand scheme of things, what harm would there be really to believe otherwise?
Author Mary Losure said that her idea for "The Fairy Ring" came after a visit to an independent bookstore in Minnesota. There she came across "The Coming of Fairies" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—a book built around the photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths and the implications behind their much-believed authenticity. Frances wrote her own book, "Reflections on the Cottingley Fairies", a memoir that was completed by her daughter, Christine Lynch, after her death. Looking at the original photos now, people would obviously see them as the forgeries they were. But back in 1917, a time when the news cycle was dominated by the First World War, the demand for legitimacy may not have been on the forefront of anyone’s mind.
It is remarkable how two girls—ages 15 and 9—were able to pull off what would later be known as one of the greatest hoaxes of the 20th century. What is even more astonishing was their ability to wholeheartedly ensnare one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. How could one of the greatest authors of his time, and a medical doctor to boot, have been so gullible? Doyle was a scientific man, but he was also spiritual and the death of his son, Kinglsey, in 1918 caused him to fully embrace spiritualism and the idea of spirits and otherworldly beings. With that in mind, it’s no wonder why in mid-1919, when the Cottingley fairy photos were made public, that Doyle was quick to embrace the idea that fairies were indeed real, thus bringing some semblance of validation and comfort to a still grieving father.
Elsie and Frances’s story is as fascinating as it is unbelievable. Remarkably, both women kept their secret long enough so that many reputations, including that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, were kept intact and untarnished. It was a hoax that would transcend all others and spawned simply because one talented and easily offended teenager simply didn’t like being teased. While Elsie eventually admitted to revealing the truth, Frances—even up to her death—never wavered from her belief in fairies. Even Sherlock Holmes may have been inclined to believe in the Cottingley fairies for he once said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Are fairies impossible? I, for one, would like to believe that fairies exist, for in the grand scheme of things, what harm would there be really to believe otherwise?
May 15, 2012
I don't think this slight book is altogether successful. (Which is too bad, because it could have benefited from some vague World of Downton Abbey publicity.) There's not quite enough story for a book of this length, unless it's that the telling just feels repetitious. The writing overall feels like it talks down to the child reader. Or maybe the book isn't aimed at the audience the cover suggests (mid-to-upper middle grade?) I think it could have been a more successful long-form picture book, both in relation to the amount of story there is to tell and to the writing style.
I was most interested in the older girl, Elsie, and was relieved/surprised/happy to discover that despite inauspicious beginnings--probably a learning disability, dropping out of school at thirteen, working menial jobs after that--she ended up having not just a happy life, but a truly INTERESTING life, which is what I like to think she craved. The photographs of her are lovely, but more importantly, the few pieces we get to see of her early artwork are quite impressive. The book doesn't say either way whether she ever had any instruction in art--I think she must have--but whatever it was, it couldn't have been very extensive. I would have liked to read a biography of Elsie herself, her whole life, with the fairies as little more than a blip--and late in the book, the author says that Elsie wrote a (lost) autobiography that was just like that.
The fairy pictures themselves are, to the modern eye, so obviously faked that it's difficult (for me, and probably more so for children) to understand how anyone could have been fooled by them. I would have liked that point to be addressed in the book. I think what I want is something with a lot of sidebars and newspaper facsimiles (more than there is, I mean) and stuff like that--more like what Candace Fleming writes.
But beyond my personal wants/wishes/desires, I don't think the writing here is on the Newbery table.
I was most interested in the older girl, Elsie, and was relieved/surprised/happy to discover that despite inauspicious beginnings--probably a learning disability, dropping out of school at thirteen, working menial jobs after that--she ended up having not just a happy life, but a truly INTERESTING life, which is what I like to think she craved. The photographs of her are lovely, but more importantly, the few pieces we get to see of her early artwork are quite impressive. The book doesn't say either way whether she ever had any instruction in art--I think she must have--but whatever it was, it couldn't have been very extensive. I would have liked to read a biography of Elsie herself, her whole life, with the fairies as little more than a blip--and late in the book, the author says that Elsie wrote a (lost) autobiography that was just like that.
The fairy pictures themselves are, to the modern eye, so obviously faked that it's difficult (for me, and probably more so for children) to understand how anyone could have been fooled by them. I would have liked that point to be addressed in the book. I think what I want is something with a lot of sidebars and newspaper facsimiles (more than there is, I mean) and stuff like that--more like what Candace Fleming writes.
But beyond my personal wants/wishes/desires, I don't think the writing here is on the Newbery table.
May 22, 2012
Explains, step-by-step, how a harmless idea could be blown out of control.
Two cousins like to play by a stream in their back yard. One thinks she sees fairies. The other decides to draw some and take photos (a new technology--this is 1917) of the drawings, to make people stop teasing them. Someone mentions these pictures to a group eager to prove the existence of fairies. And eventually, the question becomes: How do you take something back once it's taken on a life of its own?
The author carefully describes the personalities of the two girls, and what was going on their lives that contributed to the whole thing. Part of it was the assumption that these two "simple" girls could not have fooled "sophisticated" adults, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous creator of the peerless sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Elsie, the artist, was insulted that people thought she wasn't talented enough to create the little figures. Frances was missing her father, away in the war, and lonely. And even Doyle had his own reasons for wanting the pictures to be real.
A very interesting character study and piece of history, with excerpts from family collections and interviews.
Two cousins like to play by a stream in their back yard. One thinks she sees fairies. The other decides to draw some and take photos (a new technology--this is 1917) of the drawings, to make people stop teasing them. Someone mentions these pictures to a group eager to prove the existence of fairies. And eventually, the question becomes: How do you take something back once it's taken on a life of its own?
The author carefully describes the personalities of the two girls, and what was going on their lives that contributed to the whole thing. Part of it was the assumption that these two "simple" girls could not have fooled "sophisticated" adults, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous creator of the peerless sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Elsie, the artist, was insulted that people thought she wasn't talented enough to create the little figures. Frances was missing her father, away in the war, and lonely. And even Doyle had his own reasons for wanting the pictures to be real.
A very interesting character study and piece of history, with excerpts from family collections and interviews.
August 29, 2012
It all began with Frances, a young girl who, being new to England, one day discovered fairies at the bottom of the garden. Unfortunately it seemed Frances was the only one to see these fairies and so without proof no one believed her, that is apart from her cousin Elsie of course. But that didn't stop the teasing that followed.
Elsie, being of kind heart and somewhat mischief nature, decided to put a stop to the teasing of her cousin Frances by providing proof of the existence of fairies. Something that was easier said then done, however with a strong will, an artistic flair and a borrowed camera she had managed to do just that.
The Fairy Ring is a true story told of how two girls, innocently enough, fooled the world and those with the passion enough to believe. As spiritualism was becoming increasingly popular at the time, fairies and nature spirits were a popular talking point, and with so little known about the subject proof of the existence of such beings were highly sought after. But little did Frances or Elsie realise just how seriously their proof would be taken.
Elsie, being of kind heart and somewhat mischief nature, decided to put a stop to the teasing of her cousin Frances by providing proof of the existence of fairies. Something that was easier said then done, however with a strong will, an artistic flair and a borrowed camera she had managed to do just that.
The Fairy Ring is a true story told of how two girls, innocently enough, fooled the world and those with the passion enough to believe. As spiritualism was becoming increasingly popular at the time, fairies and nature spirits were a popular talking point, and with so little known about the subject proof of the existence of such beings were highly sought after. But little did Frances or Elsie realise just how seriously their proof would be taken.
June 2, 2017
Great, easy to understand book about the truth behind the famous Cottingley fairy photos. Perfect for older children or even adults who want basic facts with a few photos and written in an interesting way.
April 3, 2017
I did not care very much for the book The Fairy Ring or Elsie and Frances Fool the World because, it was very dry and bland it needed something to dress it up a little bit. What I did like is that the author, Mary Losure, incorporated actual pictures of Elsie and Frances with the "faeries". I, personally, wouldn't recommend this book to anyone because, the whole book is just like reading a really long news paper article, but about faeries. It is my belief that Frances and Elsie are total brats, who would keep such a secret for so long I would feel so guilty that I would tell the truth involuntarily. Frances and Elsie drew and cut out pictures, set them up and took a picture saying that they the faeries were real, now keep in mind that this was going on around the time of world war one in England.
December 7, 2017
#6 “The Fairy Ring” by May Losure was an incredible tale of two girls who lived in Yorkshire and Cottingley, England. When Frances moves to England to live with her cousin Elsie strange things start to happen. When Frances finds fairies and gnomes by the beck she tells her family. When they tease Frances over the fairies; Elsie makes fairy out of watercolors and together they take pictures of them meeting the fairies. When reports start coming to Frances home, she and Elsie make a promise to keep the secret of the fake fairies from the world at any cost.
Mary Losure made the phenomenal story “The Fairy Ring”. I enjoyed that throughout the book Mary Losure would change the perspective from one characters to another's. I liked this because there was always at least a second perspective to the story. I disliked that as the book went on, the same few event kept recurring and the story was just rambling on and on by the end. I believe that, “The Fairy Ring”, had some valuable lessons to learn such as we shouldn’t make a fool of someone because what they say is not true in your mind. An example of this is when Frances parents make fun of her because they believe she didn’t see fairies. Another is that even when we say something that couldn’t possibly hurt someone, it can rip someone emotionally apart; like when Elsie is hurt when others say her art isn’t super amazing. I think the theme of the book is to believe others no matter the circumstance because it can hurt someone. I believe this because throughout the book Elsie and Frances have to learn to trust others because no one else will believe in them. An example of this is how after Frances saw the fairies, Elsie was the the only person who believed in Frances. Because no one believed in Frances she lost self confidence and part of her natural nature. Believing in others makes the difference in others lives by helping them know that what they think, say, see, or anything else means something.
Mary Losure made the phenomenal story “The Fairy Ring”. I enjoyed that throughout the book Mary Losure would change the perspective from one characters to another's. I liked this because there was always at least a second perspective to the story. I disliked that as the book went on, the same few event kept recurring and the story was just rambling on and on by the end. I believe that, “The Fairy Ring”, had some valuable lessons to learn such as we shouldn’t make a fool of someone because what they say is not true in your mind. An example of this is when Frances parents make fun of her because they believe she didn’t see fairies. Another is that even when we say something that couldn’t possibly hurt someone, it can rip someone emotionally apart; like when Elsie is hurt when others say her art isn’t super amazing. I think the theme of the book is to believe others no matter the circumstance because it can hurt someone. I believe this because throughout the book Elsie and Frances have to learn to trust others because no one else will believe in them. An example of this is how after Frances saw the fairies, Elsie was the the only person who believed in Frances. Because no one believed in Frances she lost self confidence and part of her natural nature. Believing in others makes the difference in others lives by helping them know that what they think, say, see, or anything else means something.
April 12, 2012
I was really excited about this book. I love fairies. I love hoaxes. I love fervent childhood friendships that border on the unsettling. And perhaps most of all, I love narrative nonfiction.
Here's a little confession: I'm not so good at reading straight nonfiction. Never have been. I promise you that most of what I know about European history comes from Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens. So when I saw that this book was laid out like a novel, I expected to be both informed and entertained (which is, I believe, my birthright as an American - thank you, Jon Stewart!).
I was disappointed. Maybe I've grown too accustomed to the "lead with the cliffhanger" style, as in Amelia Lost, but the straight chronological organization of the book kind of killed the suspense. The reader knows from the outset exactly how the photos are faked.
The notes at the end indicate the author's meticulous research, but I don't think the narrative form showcases that very well either. It would be difficult for a child reader to tell which details are partially imagined and which are taken from primary sources. For example, Losure describes in detail how Frances felt about her first glimpse of England, but credits no one source for this information. On the other hand, her description of Elsie's "wide beaming smile" is a direct quote.
I was even more troubled by the layout. For a book so heavily dependent on its visual elements, I thought the photographs were sloppily placed, often appearing nowhere near the text describing them. Unless I'm very confused (always a possibility), one photo of Elsie shows up an entire chapter too early.
Losure does do a very good job of characterizing Elsie and Frances sympathetically but honestly, and of explaining the historical circumstances that could allow them to perpetuate a hoax on this grand a scale. I'd put this in my library's collection, and I'd probably even booktalk it. But I wouldn't recommend it for an award.
Here's a little confession: I'm not so good at reading straight nonfiction. Never have been. I promise you that most of what I know about European history comes from Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, and Charles Dickens. So when I saw that this book was laid out like a novel, I expected to be both informed and entertained (which is, I believe, my birthright as an American - thank you, Jon Stewart!).
I was disappointed. Maybe I've grown too accustomed to the "lead with the cliffhanger" style, as in Amelia Lost, but the straight chronological organization of the book kind of killed the suspense. The reader knows from the outset exactly how the photos are faked.
The notes at the end indicate the author's meticulous research, but I don't think the narrative form showcases that very well either. It would be difficult for a child reader to tell which details are partially imagined and which are taken from primary sources. For example, Losure describes in detail how Frances felt about her first glimpse of England, but credits no one source for this information. On the other hand, her description of Elsie's "wide beaming smile" is a direct quote.
I was even more troubled by the layout. For a book so heavily dependent on its visual elements, I thought the photographs were sloppily placed, often appearing nowhere near the text describing them. Unless I'm very confused (always a possibility), one photo of Elsie shows up an entire chapter too early.
Losure does do a very good job of characterizing Elsie and Frances sympathetically but honestly, and of explaining the historical circumstances that could allow them to perpetuate a hoax on this grand a scale. I'd put this in my library's collection, and I'd probably even booktalk it. But I wouldn't recommend it for an award.
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April 30, 2017Mary Losure's book about two girls who accidentally fooled the world into thinking they had encountered fairies in the town of Cottingley in England showcases how much the things that we believe can form the core of who we are, and how, in our zeal to maintain our identity, we can sometimes flock to untruths that confirm out bias or find ourselves fooled by con artists. In the case of these girls, the photos were a joke that spun out of control when Arthur Conan Doyle declared the photos to be real because he ardently believed in fairies, but the concept is no less relevant today, in a flood of fake news and science denial.
This would tie in to one of my Media choices, a video by the Folklorist where he discusses the event. The first 4 minutes of the video are framed like a legitimate news story, and I could tie that into Gallager's article evaluation chart, leaving the conclusion out until the students have read the book. This would give them practice reading into what those perpetrating a hoax are saying, or not saying, to get them to believe.
This would tie in to one of my Media choices, a video by the Folklorist where he discusses the event. The first 4 minutes of the video are framed like a legitimate news story, and I could tie that into Gallager's article evaluation chart, leaving the conclusion out until the students have read the book. This would give them practice reading into what those perpetrating a hoax are saying, or not saying, to get them to believe.
November 8, 2020
Delightful middle grade non-fiction about the Cottingley fairies. I had no idea that the mystery of the photographs lasted into the 1980s, nor that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was involved! This has sparked the researcher in me to want to find out more about this story, and perhaps read a few of the books in the bibliography. This was a very quick read, well-researched, and excellently illustrated with the photographs and drawings mentioned.
I do wish the book had been a bit more thorough in some ways, though I understand wanting to keep it short. Still, Frances and Elsie are introduced without last names -- a bit strange. I had to search to find that Frances' last name was Griffiths. I also wondered a bit about Frances' childhood in South Africa and why they were moving to England (sort of explained by WWI, but not really).
The book also glances over a lot of interesting issues brought up by this tale. Issues of class play a big role here; Elsie and Frances are working-class girls and the men they deceived were wealthy, upper-class society. Issues of children/childhood vs. adulthood, and perceptions of children/childhood also play a major role here. Gender, as well, factors into this story. While I appreciate that this is for a younger audience, I do think more could have been said on at least one of these topics. Younger audiences are not necessarily uncomplicated audiences. At the very least, perhaps some discussion questions could have been included with the text.
In general, lovely middle-grade non-fiction!!
I do wish the book had been a bit more thorough in some ways, though I understand wanting to keep it short. Still, Frances and Elsie are introduced without last names -- a bit strange. I had to search to find that Frances' last name was Griffiths. I also wondered a bit about Frances' childhood in South Africa and why they were moving to England (sort of explained by WWI, but not really).
The book also glances over a lot of interesting issues brought up by this tale. Issues of class play a big role here; Elsie and Frances are working-class girls and the men they deceived were wealthy, upper-class society. Issues of children/childhood vs. adulthood, and perceptions of children/childhood also play a major role here. Gender, as well, factors into this story. While I appreciate that this is for a younger audience, I do think more could have been said on at least one of these topics. Younger audiences are not necessarily uncomplicated audiences. At the very least, perhaps some discussion questions could have been included with the text.
In general, lovely middle-grade non-fiction!!
August 15, 2019
I remembered this book while I was reading THE COTTINGLEY SECRET by Hazel Gaynor. I love this book because the pictures are so beautiful (even if they are faked) and the author does a terrific job of tracing the entire story. We learn what it must have been like for Elsie and Frances as their story got out to the wider world and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of all people) so wanted to believe it. The girls grew into women who kept mum for a very long time. And again, we (the readership) are left with the feeling of would it not be nice if there was another world nearby of fantastical creatures? *I would like to remember these books for next year's summer reading program! (2020)
September 28, 2022
This short book tells the famous story of two girls (one from South Africa and one from England) whose active imaginations convinced them they say fairies, gnomes and other woodland creatures in the meadow close to where they lived during WWI. In order to prove this to the adults they make clever fake photos of each of them with fairies that had been drawn by one of the girls. There deception fools Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other high profiles individuals. The story of what they think they say, how they created the fake photos and the lifelong coverup is a fascinating story.
April 23, 2021
You go girls! Way to show adults that children are capable of great things. Like starting a 66-year hoax. Amazing.
September 29, 2012
Richie’s Picks: THE FAIRY RING, OR ELSIE AND FRANCES FOOL THE WORLD by Mary Losure, Candlewick, March 2012, 192p., ISBN: 978-0-7636-5670-6
“I know you won’t believe me
But I’m certain that I did see
A mouse playing daffodil”
-- Ray Thomas, “Nice to Be Here”
“How was she supposed to know that she had taken her photographs at a time when a number of very respectable, well-educated city people were starting to think that maybe fairies weren’t ‘magic’ at all?
“Maybe, these people thought, fairies were just something science didn’t understand yet but would soon. After all, many things seemed like magic if you didn’t understand them. Telegraphs that sent messages through wires! X-rays that could see the bones inside your hand!
“To some, it seemed quite likely that a camera could take pictures of fairies. After all, an X-ray could see pictures of things people couldn’t see. Why couldn’t a camera?
“In discussions going on in faraway London, people suggested that maybe soon, scientists would be able to study fairies. Soon, they reasoned, fairies, hobgoblins, brownies, and so on could be sorted into scientific groups such as order, genus, and species.
“And that – though Elsie had no way of knowing this – was why Mr. Gardner’s letter asked Elsie to take ‘actual photographs of some of the orders.’”
“Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development. More specifically, it aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition, through cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience, and to present the results thus derived in a manner subject to rational verification. In its investigations of the spiritual world, anthroposophy aims to attain the precision and clarity attained by the natural sciences in their investigations of the natural world.”
-- from the Wikipedia article, “Anthroposophy”
I have to say that fairies typically annoy the heck out of me. Why? Well, although I grew up with a live-and-let-live indifference toward such things, I spent some months in the late eighties hanging out with a woman who coincidentally was the niece of the late Sylvia Plath. And it so happened that this woman’s son and daughter were attending the local Waldorf (Steiner) school. As I spent some time with her kids and got to learn of the seeming obsession of Steiner education with fairies and other fantastical woodland beings, it eventually began to grate on me, and I developed an aversion to reading about these mythical creatures.
That’s why, when I received an advance reading copy of THE FAIRY RING last fall, I took one look at the cover – a photo of a girl and a fairy – and didn’t even get far enough to figure out that it was a piece of nonfiction. I just took one look and knew it wasn’t something I wanted any part of – thanks in large part to Rudolf Steiner.
So it is pretty interesting to now read this true story about a hoax perpetrated by two cousins a century ago – in apparent reaction to parental teasing -- and learn from Wikipedia that Rudolf Steiner (just the sort of well-educated city people to whom this book might refer) established his first school in 1919, right when this hoax was spinning out of control. Therefore, I reckon, thousands of past and current Steiner school students can, in part, thank these two cousins/perpetrators we meet in THE FAIRY RING for an assist in this facet of their education.
The author leaves it ambiguous as to whether the younger cousin Frances did, actually, see fairies in the first place. I assume that this is consistent with the historical record and, thus, is the unsolved mystery here.
In addition to this book, therefore, being a surreal tale on several fronts, I see there being a mighty interesting information literacy lesson here. I guess that the first obvious thing we take away from THE FAIRY RING is that photographs can lie and so we should take with a grain of salt all that we see on the covers of those scandal sheets that line the conveyor belt at the supermarket. Given that one of those fooled by the two girls was none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we should also recognize that so-called wise men can be as easily duped as anyone when they have their own underlying beliefs, hopes, and prejudices. (It was a shocker when the author belatedly gives us the low-down on Doyle.)
And we are left wondering what Frances actually saw (or thought she saw) down at the beck (stream) in the first place that led to the adults teasing her and, then, to the cousins taking the original hoax photos. And how they kept their secret so dang long.
I still can’t stand fairies, but this was a pretty cool read.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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“I know you won’t believe me
But I’m certain that I did see
A mouse playing daffodil”
-- Ray Thomas, “Nice to Be Here”
“How was she supposed to know that she had taken her photographs at a time when a number of very respectable, well-educated city people were starting to think that maybe fairies weren’t ‘magic’ at all?
“Maybe, these people thought, fairies were just something science didn’t understand yet but would soon. After all, many things seemed like magic if you didn’t understand them. Telegraphs that sent messages through wires! X-rays that could see the bones inside your hand!
“To some, it seemed quite likely that a camera could take pictures of fairies. After all, an X-ray could see pictures of things people couldn’t see. Why couldn’t a camera?
“In discussions going on in faraway London, people suggested that maybe soon, scientists would be able to study fairies. Soon, they reasoned, fairies, hobgoblins, brownies, and so on could be sorted into scientific groups such as order, genus, and species.
“And that – though Elsie had no way of knowing this – was why Mr. Gardner’s letter asked Elsie to take ‘actual photographs of some of the orders.’”
“Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development. More specifically, it aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition, through cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience, and to present the results thus derived in a manner subject to rational verification. In its investigations of the spiritual world, anthroposophy aims to attain the precision and clarity attained by the natural sciences in their investigations of the natural world.”
-- from the Wikipedia article, “Anthroposophy”
I have to say that fairies typically annoy the heck out of me. Why? Well, although I grew up with a live-and-let-live indifference toward such things, I spent some months in the late eighties hanging out with a woman who coincidentally was the niece of the late Sylvia Plath. And it so happened that this woman’s son and daughter were attending the local Waldorf (Steiner) school. As I spent some time with her kids and got to learn of the seeming obsession of Steiner education with fairies and other fantastical woodland beings, it eventually began to grate on me, and I developed an aversion to reading about these mythical creatures.
That’s why, when I received an advance reading copy of THE FAIRY RING last fall, I took one look at the cover – a photo of a girl and a fairy – and didn’t even get far enough to figure out that it was a piece of nonfiction. I just took one look and knew it wasn’t something I wanted any part of – thanks in large part to Rudolf Steiner.
So it is pretty interesting to now read this true story about a hoax perpetrated by two cousins a century ago – in apparent reaction to parental teasing -- and learn from Wikipedia that Rudolf Steiner (just the sort of well-educated city people to whom this book might refer) established his first school in 1919, right when this hoax was spinning out of control. Therefore, I reckon, thousands of past and current Steiner school students can, in part, thank these two cousins/perpetrators we meet in THE FAIRY RING for an assist in this facet of their education.
The author leaves it ambiguous as to whether the younger cousin Frances did, actually, see fairies in the first place. I assume that this is consistent with the historical record and, thus, is the unsolved mystery here.
In addition to this book, therefore, being a surreal tale on several fronts, I see there being a mighty interesting information literacy lesson here. I guess that the first obvious thing we take away from THE FAIRY RING is that photographs can lie and so we should take with a grain of salt all that we see on the covers of those scandal sheets that line the conveyor belt at the supermarket. Given that one of those fooled by the two girls was none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we should also recognize that so-called wise men can be as easily duped as anyone when they have their own underlying beliefs, hopes, and prejudices. (It was a shocker when the author belatedly gives us the low-down on Doyle.)
And we are left wondering what Frances actually saw (or thought she saw) down at the beck (stream) in the first place that led to the adults teasing her and, then, to the cousins taking the original hoax photos. And how they kept their secret so dang long.
I still can’t stand fairies, but this was a pretty cool read.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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September 26, 2012
Losure does a beautiful job of telling the true story of the two English cousins who, in the 1920s, faked a couple of photos of themselves and some fairies, never dreaming what a stir they would cause in the years to come. I'd heard of Elsie and Frances and the Cottingley fairies before, but never read a full account of it as is in this book. Elsie liked to draw, and was a very good artist, so she was the one who made the cutout fairies to use in the photos. What astonishes me is that adults actually believed that, because they could find no tampering with the glass plate negatives themselves, the photos were genuine. I guess it never occurred to them that the setting of the photos could contain elements of fakery. And the longer the girls delayed telling the truth, the less likely it became that they ever would. Such a famous man as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, believed in fairies and wrote a book about them. One man, Mr. Hodson, came to Cottingley to look for the fairies himself, and claimed to see them whenever Frances and Elsie said they were seeing them. Was it wishful thinking on his part? One of the photos the girls took was of a bunch of weeds (the "fairy bower"), with no faked fairies in it, yet when the photo was returned to them from Mr. Gardner, there was clearly at least one fairy in the picture. Surely someone must have realized that the photo had been tampered with. But no. Apparently in the U.S. people were more skeptical, but in England belief in the photos persisted until the cousins finally revealed the truth in 1983.
One thing that I was never clear on is that Frances always maintained that she really did see little people, but not fairies. Was she making that up, or did she conjure them up out of a vivid imagination, and then later came to believe her own imaginings were real?
The book is illustrated with all the photos that the girls took, plus a couple of Elsie's paintings. The lettering on the cover, title page, and chapter headings is an art nouveau lettering, popular at the time. Seeing that lettering makes you feel like you're reading a Victorian or Edwardian book--very appropriate. A nice bibliography at the back gives the reader further resources to explore. This is a must-read for anyone who is interested in fairies, or early photography.
One thing that I was never clear on is that Frances always maintained that she really did see little people, but not fairies. Was she making that up, or did she conjure them up out of a vivid imagination, and then later came to believe her own imaginings were real?
The book is illustrated with all the photos that the girls took, plus a couple of Elsie's paintings. The lettering on the cover, title page, and chapter headings is an art nouveau lettering, popular at the time. Seeing that lettering makes you feel like you're reading a Victorian or Edwardian book--very appropriate. A nice bibliography at the back gives the reader further resources to explore. This is a must-read for anyone who is interested in fairies, or early photography.
May 2, 2012
Reason for Reading: I've read Joe Cooper's "The Case of the Cottingley Fairies" and have since been fascinated with this story and with Doyle's involvement. This book for juveniles sounded like it would present the story from the girls' point of view and I was eager to read it.
This is a wonderful little biography, complete with all the "fairy" photographs and others of Frances and Elsie at the time, which tells the story of how the cousins came to be together in England at Cottingly, Yorkshire. When they first saw fairies and how the pictures came to be and how ultimately their worldwide sensation came around. The story focuses mostly on the girls themselves and the story of how they came across the fairies and decided to take pictures to "prove" themselves, is incredibly interesting and takes up a good portion of the book. We get a real feel for the girls and their innocence, even though they created one of the biggest hoaxes of the early twentieth century that fooled such eminent figures as Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle.
One gets a sense for a lonely Frances, moved from bustling South Africa to dreary England to wait while her father volunteers to fight in the Great War. Did she really see fairies and gnomes or was it just the daydreams of a lonely little girl? One also senses Elsie's otherwise mundane life as a young school-leaver, working in a factory, trying to protect her young cousin and coming up with what at first seems an innocent ploy to stop the grown-ups pestering them. Little did they know the world they lived in was chock full of spiritualism and the existence of fairies and other little people were on the minds of many such spiritualists of the day. Once their pictures are seen outside the family, a flood of interest descends upon them which they cannot stop. The two girls, turn into women and their frolic with fairies will forever haunt them.
I'd love to read Frances' autobiography in which she does continue to affirm that she did see some fairies in the beck behind her cousin's house but it is unfortunately not in print at this time. The story is very compelling to me though, that I've decided to go a step further and have purchased the Kindle edition of Doyle's 1922 study entitled "The Coming of the Fairies".
This is a wonderful little biography, complete with all the "fairy" photographs and others of Frances and Elsie at the time, which tells the story of how the cousins came to be together in England at Cottingly, Yorkshire. When they first saw fairies and how the pictures came to be and how ultimately their worldwide sensation came around. The story focuses mostly on the girls themselves and the story of how they came across the fairies and decided to take pictures to "prove" themselves, is incredibly interesting and takes up a good portion of the book. We get a real feel for the girls and their innocence, even though they created one of the biggest hoaxes of the early twentieth century that fooled such eminent figures as Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle.
One gets a sense for a lonely Frances, moved from bustling South Africa to dreary England to wait while her father volunteers to fight in the Great War. Did she really see fairies and gnomes or was it just the daydreams of a lonely little girl? One also senses Elsie's otherwise mundane life as a young school-leaver, working in a factory, trying to protect her young cousin and coming up with what at first seems an innocent ploy to stop the grown-ups pestering them. Little did they know the world they lived in was chock full of spiritualism and the existence of fairies and other little people were on the minds of many such spiritualists of the day. Once their pictures are seen outside the family, a flood of interest descends upon them which they cannot stop. The two girls, turn into women and their frolic with fairies will forever haunt them.
I'd love to read Frances' autobiography in which she does continue to affirm that she did see some fairies in the beck behind her cousin's house but it is unfortunately not in print at this time. The story is very compelling to me though, that I've decided to go a step further and have purchased the Kindle edition of Doyle's 1922 study entitled "The Coming of the Fairies".
April 14, 2014
In the book The Fairy Ring by Mary Losure, the main message of this book is that adults need to understand how delicate children's imaginations are and how important their fantasies are to them. This novel takes place in the vast forests "of the fairy's" in England around the 1900s. The novel is written by the perspective of the author who writes about Frances and Elsie's story of "fairy's are real". Frances and Elsie are cousins and the two main characters in this book. Frances has a very strong belief in fairies, but not everyone believes her. She constantly gets teased by family and friends about this wild accusation of fairies being real. Elsie is tired of Frances being teased so she comes up with a plan to draw fairies around Frances and take pictures! Her friends and family are amazed! Elsie and Frances are excited they fooled their parents, but others are starting to hear about these pictures. Even Sherlock Homes starts to believe!
I mainly enjoyed this book because of making connections with the fact of someone not believing you. There was only one main negative I could point out in this book which was that in the beginning of the novel, the author kept going on and on about the plot and nothing interesting was happening. But overall I enjoyed this book. I feel like i could connect especially with Elsie because even if she didn't fully believe Frances, she helped her make her fantasy come true. She was being such a good friend to Frances and made her dream come to life. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a wild imagination.
I mainly enjoyed this book because of making connections with the fact of someone not believing you. There was only one main negative I could point out in this book which was that in the beginning of the novel, the author kept going on and on about the plot and nothing interesting was happening. But overall I enjoyed this book. I feel like i could connect especially with Elsie because even if she didn't fully believe Frances, she helped her make her fantasy come true. She was being such a good friend to Frances and made her dream come to life. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a wild imagination.
April 19, 2012
This is the full story of the Cottingley fairies, the photos of fairies that came to light in England in the early twenties. You have probably seen these photos at one time or another, but when they first appeared, experts in photography at the time indicated that the plates the photos were real. The photographic plates had not been tampered with. Several influential people of the time, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (author of Sherlock Holmes) were sure that fairies were real and latched onto these photos as proof.
The interesting thing about this story is why the girls who took the photos grew to be old ladies before the truth of the photos came out. Perhaps people’s beliefs that there are fairies made them more inclined to believe that these young girls were innocent of any scam. They were innocent in that they never intended the photos to become public and particularly not in the vast way that happened.
The story is told by Mary Losure very simply making it suitable reading for young readers, however I think that a child would need to be interested in the story behind the photos to stick with it. I did and I think that Losure probably told the story in as interesting a way as possible, given that it’s the true story as revealed by letters from the time and the woman’s later autobiographies.
The interesting thing about this story is why the girls who took the photos grew to be old ladies before the truth of the photos came out. Perhaps people’s beliefs that there are fairies made them more inclined to believe that these young girls were innocent of any scam. They were innocent in that they never intended the photos to become public and particularly not in the vast way that happened.
The story is told by Mary Losure very simply making it suitable reading for young readers, however I think that a child would need to be interested in the story behind the photos to stick with it. I did and I think that Losure probably told the story in as interesting a way as possible, given that it’s the true story as revealed by letters from the time and the woman’s later autobiographies.
January 27, 2021
“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you...”
Contradictory to the aged saying that you can’t fool an honest man; honest men are in actuality easy to fool. People don’t in fact understand, a lot of times that they’re victims of a swindle because they believe it so much they want to keep believing.
The newspapers called it ‘The Cottingley fairy hoax of 1917’. But that was after sixty years of the hoax’s persistence. The story of the Cottingley fairies has always fascinated people, not because of the particulars of the case, but because of what it reveals about the life cycle of a lie. In contrast to other famous hoaxes, it doesn’t seem malicious, or even necessarily deliberate. Instead it seems to to be a story about how a single, relatively small act of deception can lead a large group of people to lose control over the truth.
The Fairy Ring, or, Elsie and Frances Fool the World, authored by Mary Losure, speaks of nine-year-old Frances, a real believer in fairies. When she and her cousin Elsie, age 15, create photographs of cutout paper fairies to get their families to stop mocking her, word spreads of this theoretically bona fide photographic verification and speedily twirls wild.
It’s a story set 103 years ago. Two young girls went down to the stream at the bottom of a garden in Cottingley, England, and took some photographs of fairies. The fairies were paper cut-outs, which Elsie Wright, age 16, had hackneyed from a children’s book. She and 10-year-old Frances Griffiths took turns posturing with the sprites.
The girls developed the photographs in Elsie’s father’s darkroom, and presented them to their families as stunning evidence that fairies were real. Elsie’s father didn’t believe them—but her mother did.
Two years later, she showed the photographs at a meeting of the Theosophical Society, a group dedicated to exploring inexplicable phenomena and “forming the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity.”
The photos even find their way into the welcome hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — renowned for his Sherlock Holmes stories — who publishes them in an article as testimony of the reality of fairies.
The author has divided her book into three sections, each consisting seven chapters.
The first section called ‘Frances’s Fairies’, includes:
1 Cottingley, Yorkshire, England
2 The Waterfall
3 Little Men
4 Black Box
5 One Glass Plate
6 Enter the Gnome
7 Frances Says Good-bye to Cottingley
The second section of the book, called ‘Elsie’, has the following chapters:
8 A Letter from London
9 The Fairy Machine
10 Mr. Gardner Receives a Package
11 Mr. Gardner Persists
12 Spider Girl
13 Sincerely Yours, Elsie Wright
14 The Investigation
The concluding section of the book, entitled Frances and Elsie has the following chapters:
15 Frances Comes for a Visit
16 An Epoch-Making Event
17 The Fairy Bower
18 The Glen Was Swarming
19 A Gentle See-through Fade-out
20 Fairy Grandmothers
21 Gorgeous and Precious Fairyland Places
The photographs presented by the girls were appealing in their own right. In the initial photograph, Frances Griffiths gawks somewhere to the right of the camera lens, pointedly not looking at the cardboard figures capering on the grass in front of her. In the second one, Elsie Wright tilts frontward to shake the hand of a tot-sized boy fairy.
Looking at them now, both photographs seem instantly certain as counterfeits. The figures are perceptibly propped-up and two dimensional. Everything, including the expressions on both girls’ faces, looks theatrical. It is tough to imagine the photos seeming persuasive to anyone older than 12.
Curiously enough, the Theosophical Society saw things in a dissimilar way; the members instantaneously and ecstatically accepted the photographs as genuine.
Edward Gardner, a writer and foremost member of the Society, took them as evidence that the “next cycle of evolution was underway” and mounted a movement to encourage the public of their genuineness. He gave lectures on the photographs, made copies of them, and passed them deferentially around at meetings.
Initial press coverage was incredulous; one editorial noted that the photographs could be explained not by “a knowledge of occult phenomena but a knowledge of children.” But throughout World War I, spirituality gained increased weight over an inconsolable British public. The fairy photographs seemed to reverberate with many people who were enthusiastic to believe in the subsistence of a better world, and in the likelihood that we might be able to converse with it.
Willingness to believe in the fairies was not a matter of intelligence or education. None other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a trained physician and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was dead-set on the whole notion. Doyle, a noted spiritualist, saw the photographs as evidence that communication could exists between material and spiritual worlds.
Doyle published an article about the photographs in The Strand magazine, and sent Gardner to visit the girls.
Imagine being either Frances or Elsie at that moment. You have engaged in an untruth — a story that started out as a joke, maybe, or a daydream. Now things are taking on a momentum that you cannot quite control.
The girls came back with three more pictures: Frances and the Leaping Fairy, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie, and Fairies and their Sun-Bath. These, too, look farcically phony to modern eyes.
But Gardner and Doyle fell for it again. Gardner then brought in a telepath, who claimed that the whole place was just swarming with fairies.
This extraordinary factual story, so competently told by Mary Losure offers a understanding portrait about people evidently in over their heads and feeling unable to disengage a swindle that lingered for 60 years.
Providentially, Losure includes reproductions of famous fairy photos, allowing readers to experience from the horse's mouth what stirred up this passionate thirst for magic in early 20th-century England.
Contradictory to the aged saying that you can’t fool an honest man; honest men are in actuality easy to fool. People don’t in fact understand, a lot of times that they’re victims of a swindle because they believe it so much they want to keep believing.
The newspapers called it ‘The Cottingley fairy hoax of 1917’. But that was after sixty years of the hoax’s persistence. The story of the Cottingley fairies has always fascinated people, not because of the particulars of the case, but because of what it reveals about the life cycle of a lie. In contrast to other famous hoaxes, it doesn’t seem malicious, or even necessarily deliberate. Instead it seems to to be a story about how a single, relatively small act of deception can lead a large group of people to lose control over the truth.
The Fairy Ring, or, Elsie and Frances Fool the World, authored by Mary Losure, speaks of nine-year-old Frances, a real believer in fairies. When she and her cousin Elsie, age 15, create photographs of cutout paper fairies to get their families to stop mocking her, word spreads of this theoretically bona fide photographic verification and speedily twirls wild.
It’s a story set 103 years ago. Two young girls went down to the stream at the bottom of a garden in Cottingley, England, and took some photographs of fairies. The fairies were paper cut-outs, which Elsie Wright, age 16, had hackneyed from a children’s book. She and 10-year-old Frances Griffiths took turns posturing with the sprites.
The girls developed the photographs in Elsie’s father’s darkroom, and presented them to their families as stunning evidence that fairies were real. Elsie’s father didn’t believe them—but her mother did.
Two years later, she showed the photographs at a meeting of the Theosophical Society, a group dedicated to exploring inexplicable phenomena and “forming the nucleus of a universal brotherhood of humanity.”
The photos even find their way into the welcome hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — renowned for his Sherlock Holmes stories — who publishes them in an article as testimony of the reality of fairies.
The author has divided her book into three sections, each consisting seven chapters.
The first section called ‘Frances’s Fairies’, includes:
1 Cottingley, Yorkshire, England
2 The Waterfall
3 Little Men
4 Black Box
5 One Glass Plate
6 Enter the Gnome
7 Frances Says Good-bye to Cottingley
The second section of the book, called ‘Elsie’, has the following chapters:
8 A Letter from London
9 The Fairy Machine
10 Mr. Gardner Receives a Package
11 Mr. Gardner Persists
12 Spider Girl
13 Sincerely Yours, Elsie Wright
14 The Investigation
The concluding section of the book, entitled Frances and Elsie has the following chapters:
15 Frances Comes for a Visit
16 An Epoch-Making Event
17 The Fairy Bower
18 The Glen Was Swarming
19 A Gentle See-through Fade-out
20 Fairy Grandmothers
21 Gorgeous and Precious Fairyland Places
The photographs presented by the girls were appealing in their own right. In the initial photograph, Frances Griffiths gawks somewhere to the right of the camera lens, pointedly not looking at the cardboard figures capering on the grass in front of her. In the second one, Elsie Wright tilts frontward to shake the hand of a tot-sized boy fairy.
Looking at them now, both photographs seem instantly certain as counterfeits. The figures are perceptibly propped-up and two dimensional. Everything, including the expressions on both girls’ faces, looks theatrical. It is tough to imagine the photos seeming persuasive to anyone older than 12.
Curiously enough, the Theosophical Society saw things in a dissimilar way; the members instantaneously and ecstatically accepted the photographs as genuine.
Edward Gardner, a writer and foremost member of the Society, took them as evidence that the “next cycle of evolution was underway” and mounted a movement to encourage the public of their genuineness. He gave lectures on the photographs, made copies of them, and passed them deferentially around at meetings.
Initial press coverage was incredulous; one editorial noted that the photographs could be explained not by “a knowledge of occult phenomena but a knowledge of children.” But throughout World War I, spirituality gained increased weight over an inconsolable British public. The fairy photographs seemed to reverberate with many people who were enthusiastic to believe in the subsistence of a better world, and in the likelihood that we might be able to converse with it.
Willingness to believe in the fairies was not a matter of intelligence or education. None other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a trained physician and the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was dead-set on the whole notion. Doyle, a noted spiritualist, saw the photographs as evidence that communication could exists between material and spiritual worlds.
Doyle published an article about the photographs in The Strand magazine, and sent Gardner to visit the girls.
Imagine being either Frances or Elsie at that moment. You have engaged in an untruth — a story that started out as a joke, maybe, or a daydream. Now things are taking on a momentum that you cannot quite control.
The girls came back with three more pictures: Frances and the Leaping Fairy, Fairy Offering Posy of Harebells to Elsie, and Fairies and their Sun-Bath. These, too, look farcically phony to modern eyes.
But Gardner and Doyle fell for it again. Gardner then brought in a telepath, who claimed that the whole place was just swarming with fairies.
This extraordinary factual story, so competently told by Mary Losure offers a understanding portrait about people evidently in over their heads and feeling unable to disengage a swindle that lingered for 60 years.
Providentially, Losure includes reproductions of famous fairy photos, allowing readers to experience from the horse's mouth what stirred up this passionate thirst for magic in early 20th-century England.
August 5, 2016
Read the electronic ARC from NetGalley. I wasn't aware of the Cottingley fairy story before reading Fairy Ring by Mary Losure. Losure does a nice job of setting up the tale by describing the lives of the two girls involved during the WW1 era. She uses letters to structure the events that led the two young cousins into what became an unintended widespread hoax: prominent people believed that the girls managed to photograph fairies! Even Arthur Conan Doyle took an interest! Though written for a juvenile audience (the tone of the writing is sometimes almost patronizing), the content is fascinating and will appeal to older audiences (including adults), as well. Losure includes the original fairy photos, a bibliography, and sources. This is a terrific read for anyone interested in fairies and/or the human nature of trying to manage things that spin out of control. And now it's making me want to read The Coming of the Fairies by Arthur Conan Doyle, his own account of the infamous Cottingley fairy photos!
May 29, 2012
Sometimes I stumble across books I'd never heard of on the New releases shelf at the library. This is one such book...although I wonder if they had it on the WRONG new releases shelf. I found it on the adult non-fiction section and it turns out this is non-fiction intended for middle grade youngsters. But, even though I am old and stuff, I still charged ahead and read this one since it sounded interesting. This true life tale of the Cottingley Fairies is told from the perspective of the two young girls who took photos of themselves with "fairies" in rural England during WWI. The resultant "media frenzy" (well, for that time, at least) that resulted from their innocent joke against their parents spun out of control and lured in the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle.
This book was a quick and charming read and included the fairy photos in question along with other photos of the girls.
This book was a quick and charming read and included the fairy photos in question along with other photos of the girls.
May 6, 2012
When two girls, Frances, 9, and Elsie, 15, claim to see fairies near where they live in Cottingley, their parents press them for proof, and as a lark, they end up photographing paper fairy cutouts painted by Elsie and staged outdoors. They had no idea that so much attention would be stirred up by their photos and that even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would find their photograph credible and beg to see one of the fairies. Perhaps most astounding of all is how the two managed to keep their secret for six decades. When readers look at the photos now, they may be puzzled as to how the photos ever fooled anyone, but perhaps there is truth to the saying that we often see what we want to see. Back matter includes an acknowledgment and source notes, attesting to the thoroughness of the author's research of this fascinating bit of history.
July 6, 2012
There isn't much meat to this story of the Edwardian-era girls who photographed fairies, impressing Arthur Conan Doyle among others. Mary Losure's narration is jerky and marred by the type of foreshadowing made popular by Erik Larson in The Devil and the White City, only Losure makes the foreshadows and just drops them, having nothing more. One Goodreads reviewer suggests that this would have been better as a long-form picture book, and I agree. As it is, I think children will be disappointed.
It surprises me that Losure does not acknowledge the film made of this story in 1997, Fairy Tale: A True Story. The film was much better than the book. Oddly another film, which I haven't seen, came out in the same year. Called Photographing Fairies it seems to be a fictional version of this same story with added characters and plot devices.
It surprises me that Losure does not acknowledge the film made of this story in 1997, Fairy Tale: A True Story. The film was much better than the book. Oddly another film, which I haven't seen, came out in the same year. Called Photographing Fairies it seems to be a fictional version of this same story with added characters and plot devices.
August 21, 2012
When I saw this book I had it confused with Brian Froud's pressed fairy books. Being over joyed that Brian Froud had produced another beautiful fairy book I picked it up. Once home I was pleased to discover it was not Brian Froud's work but an audobiography about two cousins in 1920 who fooled the world with paper fairys. This book was delightful. I loved the sweet story of the young girls imagination. The lost photos of the girls with their fairys were classic and beautiful. I enjoyed learning about old time cameras and the hard work that went in to taking one simple glass photo plate. I loved the hand written letter to each other. Showing the classic language really made you feel you were back in 1920. This book didn't read like a audobiography but more like a story book. It was a quick read and one that can stand the test of time.
May 14, 2012
When cousins Elsie and Frances fake photographs of themselves with fairies beside the stream behind their cottage, they don’t think it's anything more than a joke on Elsie's dad. The "fairies" were just paper cut-outs! But things spin out of control when other grown-ups find out about the pictures -- and believe them. Amazingly, one of those duped adults is none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the great detective Sherlock Holmes. The Fairy Ring vividly recounts this surprising and true tale, and includes the actual photographs Elsie and Frances made. It’s a fascinating tale of imagination, belief, and how adults all too easily underestimate the creative powers and capabilities of young girls.
August 26, 2012
4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th Ok, I picked this up knowing I would have to trudge through another fairy story...I was in for a surprise. Not a fantasy at all, but a nonfiction story about two English girls that fooled the world with their photographs of fairies in the early 1900s. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle becomes interested it isn't long before the world sees the photographs. Faking a total of 4 pictures and one "authentic" fairy photo. I have this book in my top faves of the year, though I know that with a cover like this it will send off a vibe that will turn many readers away. Go read it, it is quick and interesting! The actual pictures in the book are so cool, imagine people being truly fooled by them, or hoping so much for a bit of proof that there is more to our world.
September 29, 2012
A rather fascinating little book about two girls living in the English countryside during WWI who decided to take a photograph of fairies. One claimed to see real fairies around the seemingly magical creek behind their house and the other, being a fiercely loyal friend/cousin, defended her and said she saw them too. Unfortunately, this caused much teasing from family members. In order to shut them up, the plan to take a photo was hatched. One of the girls happened to be a talented artist...
The fairy photos would have remained a quirky family story if not for a fated twist of events involving Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of all people, himself a fierce believer in fairies. The photos caused a world-wide sensation and changed the lives of the two girls forever.
The fairy photos would have remained a quirky family story if not for a fated twist of events involving Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of all people, himself a fierce believer in fairies. The photos caused a world-wide sensation and changed the lives of the two girls forever.
May 10, 2012
In 1917, two young cousins in England who are tired of being teased, take fake photographs of themselves with fairies (actually painted cut-outs) as a joke. The "joke" gets out of control and people all over the world (including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) begin to believe the photos are real. Not until the girls are elderly do they admit the photos were not real. The book reads almost like fiction, but in fact it is a true story -- all the more fascinating! Well-researched and well-written, the book is a fascinating glimpse into people's need to believe in fairies, gnomes, sprites, etc. Short but engrossing and thought-provoking.
June 10, 2012
This is the kind of non-fiction that I find fascinating...its a wonderful story of two young girl's and their photos of imaginary fairies, that many came to believe in. the story unfolds in a simple, clear, compelling narrative, with nuance and detail. The original photos that accompany the text, are the originals that the girls took back in the 1920's. Just a small quibble, if the photos could have been closer to the text where they were mentioned, it would have been better...I found myself paging through the book looking for the specific photos that were being mentioned. What interesting young ladies and a cast of unusual characters !
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