It’s early January at the cabin, before the snow. Cian watches the 1997 movie Fairy Tale: A True Story in the first of two investigations into the 1997 double-bill of Cottingley Fairy films. Grab yourself whatever you may need to get through a schmaltzy 90s kid film. Along the way we’ll talk about:

-how Victorians & Edwardians were obsessed with fairies

-why Theosophists, Spiritualists, and Arthur Conan Doyle were so keen to believe in real fairies

-the strange friendship between Conan Doyle and the American magician Houdini

-the importance of ambiguity in films about fraud/belief

-the role of youth, femininity and class in the story of the Cottingley Fairies

SOURCES:

Borderland Forms: Arthur Conan Doyle, Albion’s Daughters, and the Politics of the Cottingley Fairies, Alex Owen, History Workshop, 1994

https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article-abstract/38/1/48/643266?redirectedFrom=fulltext

The Coming Of The Fairies, Arthur Conan Doyle, 1922

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/47506/47506-h/47506-h.htm

Princess Mary’s Gift Book

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39592/39592-h/39592-h.htm