The Cottingley Fairies Go To The Movies: Part 1

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