When Charles #Dickens unexpectedly died in 1870, readers felt doubly cheated, not only losing the author, but also the ending of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." But with spiritualism at its height, avid fans decided to take matters into their own hands and consult...his ghost! 👻

In Battleborough, Vermont, in 1872, tramp printer Thomas Power James had a trance in a boarding house seánce. "Charles Dickens" wrote a polite note to James, requesting a 15 Nov. meeting.

Ghost Dickens asked James to write the ending of "Edwin Drood" through "spirit-pen" 👻🖋️
T.P. James kindly did so, with a medium's aid. The result was a completed "Part Second" (1873), which features a "Medium's Preface"!

👻Ghost Dickens claims that injured Edwin Drood is rescued by Durdles, allies with Datchery to expose an insane Jasper, and later marries Rosa 👻
None other than #Sherlock creator Arthur Conan Doyle attended a seánce at which American violinist Florizel von Reuter (who died 1985!) interrogated Ghost Dickens about the lost finale of "Edwin Drood," and was told,

👻"Edwin is alive and Cris[parkle] is hiding him" 👻
In "Twenty Years' Experience as a Ghost Hunter" (1916) Elliott O'Donnell complained that despite the lapse of years, Ghost Dickens 👻 had proliferated rather than subsided, with "foolish and conceited" people naïvely assuming the great late author would wish to contact them!
Though in 1858 #Dickens mocked spiritualism in "The Rapping Spirits" and this HILARIOUS piece, he also wrote many ghost tales himself and attended @GhostClub1862. Likely, he would have satirized but understood the craze to interview his ghostly shade 👻https://t.co/mvqOfqt6PU
Some form of logic may have supported using seánces and other otherworldly means to contact the Ghost of Charles Dickens 👻 in the Age of Spiritualism

After all, if the ghosts of lawyers can return on Christmas Eve to remonstrate, why not famous authors to finish the story?
For more on the reputed activities of Ghost Dickens and theories about "Edwin Drood," read @DrPeteOrford's "The Mystery of Edwin Drood: Charles Dickens' Unfinished Novel & Our Endless Attempts to End It" (2018): https://t.co/cCa1WnCmUu
Also, read T.P. James/Ghost Dickens's "Part Second" collaboration here, containing the "Medium's Preface": https://t.co/v5XKoxRUNu
Courtesy of the A.C.D. Encyclopedia, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's full account of his "meeting" with Ghost Dickens can be read in "The Edge of the Unknown" (1930), section "VI. The Alleged Posthumous Writings of Known Authors": https://t.co/TxYMJBeqT4
Last, but not least, O'Donnell's text on Ghost Dickens's afterlives, complaining about the arrogance of his spiritualist fans: https://t.co/ryukRs3eDA

More from Culture

.@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission @marydejevsky @freddiesayers


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) .@bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:

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@franciscodeasis https://t.co/OuQaBRFPu7
Unfortunately the "This work includes the identification of viral sequences in bat samples, and has resulted in the isolation of three bat SARS-related coronaviruses that are now used as reagents to test therapeutics and vaccines." were BEFORE the


chimeric infectious clone grants were there.https://t.co/DAArwFkz6v is in 2017, Rs4231.
https://t.co/UgXygDjYbW is in 2016, RsSHC014 and RsWIV16.
https://t.co/krO69CsJ94 is in 2013, RsWIV1. notice that this is before the beginning of the project

starting in 2016. Also remember that they told about only 3 isolates/live viruses. RsSHC014 is a live infectious clone that is just as alive as those other "Isolates".

P.D. somehow is able to use funds that he have yet recieved yet, and send results and sequences from late 2019 back in time into 2015,2013 and 2016!

https://t.co/4wC7k1Lh54 Ref 3: Why ALL your pangolin samples were PCR negative? to avoid deep sequencing and accidentally reveal Paguma Larvata and Oryctolagus Cuniculus?