Apr 13, 2023 - Sale 2633

Sale 2633 - Lot 154

Price Realized: $ 1,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(SPIRITUALISM.) Spectropia; or Surprising Spectral Illusions, Showing Ghosts Everywhere, and of Any Colour. 16 color plates. 11 pages. 4to, original printed boards; hand-sewn repairs to hinges, otherwise minimal wear. New York, 1864
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Additional Details

This book is an anti-spiritualist rather than a spiritualist tract. It aims to prove that if you stare at a creepy picture of a ghost or demon long enough, your eyes will then see a ghost or demon, thus exposing "the absurd follies of spiritualism."

The book bears the ownership inscriptions of Captain Frederick W. Alexander, who commanded the Baltimore Battery of Light Artillery in 1864 and 1865. On the front free endpaper he drafted a long letter to the Secretary of the Navy [Gideon Welles] regarding his design for a "vessel most calculated to be of service" with "the advantages of wooden and iron-clad vessels." On the rear board is another faint pencil inscription in the same hand: "This book should not be used as it will not do good. . ."