Barbara Weisberg's Talking to the Dead blends biography and social history in this revelatory story of the family responsible for the rise of Spiritualism.

A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement -- and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in mystery.

In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox -- sisters aged eleven and fourteen -- anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born.

Talking to the Dead follows the fascinating story of the two girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of thousands of Americans were flocking to séances. An international movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world.

Weisberg traces not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including their mysterious Svengali-like sister Leah) but also the social, religious, economic and political climates that provided the breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough, compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an incredible ghost story.

• We started tracking this book on December 4, 2010.
• This book was $10.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 203 times in the past 5,133 days.
• The current price of this book is $2.99 last checked 5 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past year.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on October 2, 2019.
• This book has been $1.99 25 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.49 last reached on February 2, 2017.
• This book has been $14.49 one time since we started tracking it.

• History

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 338 Pages
• File Size: 1,854 KB