A Review of the "Spiritual Manifestations" read before the Congregational Association of New York and Brooklyn.

London: Thomas Bosworth. 1853.

Presentation copy

First UK edition, published the same year as the first US edition. 8vo. 170x105mm. pp. xxxii, 93 [1], [2], 14pp adverts. Publisher's brown cloth (binder's ticket - Westley's - on rear pastedown), decorated in blind and lettered in gilt. Spine has a paper label with the title and author written in pencil. Presentation copy from publisher, inscribed in ink on the front free endpaper "with the publisher's compliments". Front pastedown has bookplate of Alan Gauld and T.J. Ring. With the library stamp of "The Greater World Association, 3 Lansdowne Road, Holland Park London W11".
Charles Beecher (1815-1900) was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and, like her, an active abolitionist. Although he was a minister in the Presbyterian and, later, Congregationalist Churches, he was barred from ministering in 1863 for heretical teachings about the human soul and Christ's divinity - he thought Jesus was an angel. We don't know but rather suspect that this little book investigating pneumatism, apneumatism, daimonia and other spiritual phenomena might have raised some doubts as to his ministerial suitablility.

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