Psychic Adventures in New York
London: Morley & Mitchell Kennerley Junior, 1931. First edition. 8vo, 49, [1]pp. Publisher's brown cloth, spine lettered in black, in printed black paper jacket. Spine cocked, some scuffing to boards along bottom edge, occult bookstore stamp to ffep. Jacket with shallow chipping at spine ends and corners, else nicely preserved. Very good.
Scarce first edition of this short book written not by a spiritualist but a linguist. Whymant was a professor of Oriental literature and philosophy and acted as advisor to the embassy of the Republic of China in London. In this book, Whymant describes the seances of medium, George Valiantine at which he was present to translate the archaic Chinese languages spoken by the spirits. The jacket blurb states:
"To his astonishment, the voice explains and corrects a number of passages from the Shih King of Confucius. Some of these poems have been unintelligible for ages, and the subject of endless controversy."
This book was also published in the U.S. in an illustrated jacket, but the U.K. edition remains scarce in the plain black and white jacket. A nice copy. Item #9188
Price: $300.00