On the Unexplained

A brand new selection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings on all things supernatural, taken from Edge of the Unknown

An account of séances, automatic writing, trips to haunted country houses, and in-depth philosophical analysis of the thinking behind the supernatural, this book is a must-have for the Conan Doyle enthusiast or the intrigued reader alike. Best known for the creation of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle had many more strings to his bow. He was a political campaigner; he believed in the existence of fairies; and he played amateur sleuth, taking up closed cases to prove miscarriage of justice. Perhaps most intriguing of all though was the fact that, following the deaths of a number of his family, Conan Doyle began to take an interest in what was then termed “spiritualism” (trying to prove the existence of life beyond the grave), he became a member of the paranormal association The Ghost Sense Club, and he also joined the British Society of Psychical Research. Conan Doyle’s famous spat with Houdini is represented here with a chapter eulogizing Houdini, apparently still not quite willing to let go the suspicion that the magician was blessed with special powers.