Letter to Herbert Greenhough Smith about fairy photos (ca. 1928)
This letter was written by Arthur Conan Doyle on 18 april [1928] from Bignell Wood, Minstead, Lyndhurst, to Herbert Greenhough Smith, editor of The Strand Magazine, about some fairy photos and the second edition of "The Coming of the Fairies" (London, 1928).
Letter
My dear Smith
Some of your team are quite new to me. I never heard of Napoleon's enemy, or of the prior Count who came to London.
I could give you the nucleus of another team. There is Buck Whalley, who walked to Jerusalem. His memoirs are little known & very interesting. There is Trelawney, Byron's friend. Beckford — or whatever his name was, author of "Vathek", Count D'Orsay, Brummell, Chevalier D'Eon. Plenty of 'em waiting.
Now Business! I have had some new fairy photos with complete evidence from Germany. How would it do to have an article "The Fairies Again". You had the courage to do the first article that ever treated the matter. This second we would rub in the fact that it was no hoax & that your judgment was right. It would have to be largely quotation from witnesses but I would put it together in an interesting way. And there are the pictures!
If I could get £100 for it I could do the right thing by the Germans concerned. But I have a second edition of my book on the Fairies in the Press and I don't want it held up. Therefore, your article would need to appear without minding what is only an appendix in my book.
I'll be here for a bit — but I could see you in London early next week if needed.
- A Conan Doyle.
Ap 18.
