studies in the occult, will have interest for a wide range of readers, and Mr. French, the editor, has shown critical discrimination and extensive knowledge of the subject. Many who are already interested in psychic phenomena will be glad to be informed concerning recent and startling manifestations recounted by special investigators. The sincerity of a man like W. T. Stead,[Pg xiv] well known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic, cannot be doubted, so that his article on Photographing Invisible Beings will have unusual weight. Hereward Carrington, author of various books on psychic subjects, and considered an authority in his field, gives in The Phantom Armies Seen in France a report of occult phenomena widely believed in during the war.

[Pg xiv]

Helena Blavatsky, author of A Witch's Den, will be remembered as the sensational medium who mystified experimenters in various lands a few years ago. While most of us can be content not to touch a ghost, we may find subject for surprise and wonder in Gambier Bolton's Ghosts in Solid Form, describing spirits that can be weighed and put to material tests, while Dr. Walter H. Prince, well known as a psychic investigator, relates remarkable experiments of famous persons, that challenge explanation on purely physical bases. These accounts show that modern scientific investigation of spiritual manifestations can be made as enthralling as fiction or drama. Hamlin Garland remarks in a recent article, The Spirit-World on Trial, "When the medium consented to enter the laboratory of the physicist, a new era in the study of psychic phenomena began."

Even those who refuse credence to spirit manifestations in fact, but who appreciate the art with which they are shown in literature, should read with interest the stories given here. The genius of Edgar Allan Poe was never more impressive than in his studies of the supernatural, and Ligeia has a dramatic art unsurpassed even by Poe. The tense economy with which Ambrose Bierce could evoke a dreadful spirit is evident[Pg xv] in The Eyes of the Panther, and the haunting symbolism of Fiona Macleod's The Sin-Eater is unforgetable. Lafcadio Hearn, author of A Ghost, held the belief that there was no great artist in any land, and certainly no Anglo-Saxon writer, who had not distinguished himself in his use of the supernatural. The subject of the soul's survival after death and its attempts to reveal itself to those still in the folding flesh is of interest to every rational person, whether as a matter of scientific concern or merely as an aspect of literary art. And the possibilities for further use of the psychic in literature are 

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