The Fairy Ring: Or Elsie and Frances Fool the World

Front Cover
Candlewick Press, Mar 27, 2012 - Juvenile Nonfiction - 192 pages

The enchanting true story of a girl who saw fairies, and another with a gift for art, who concocted a story to stay out of trouble and ended up fooling the world.

Frances was nine when she first saw the fairies. They were tiny men, dressed all in green. Nobody but Frances saw them, so her cousin Elsie painted paper fairies and took photographs of them “dancing” around Frances to make the grown-ups stop teasing. The girls promised each other they would never, ever tell that the photos weren’t real. But how were Frances and Elsie supposed to know that their photographs would fall into the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And who would have dreamed that the man who created the famous detective Sherlock Holmes believed ardently in fairies
— and wanted very much to see one? Mary Losure presents this enthralling true story as a fanciful narrative featuring the original Cottingley fairy photos and previously unpublished drawings and images from the family’s archives. A delight for everyone with a fondness for fairies, and for anyone who has ever started something that spun out of control.
Back matter includes source notes and a bibliography.

 

Contents

Part One
2
Cottingley Yorkshire England
3
The Waterfall
8
Little Men
17
Black Box
26
One Glass Plate
33
Enter The Gnome
39
Frances Says Goodbye to Cottingley
43
Frances Comes for a Visit
101
An EpochMaking Event
113
The Fairy Bower
123
The Glen Was Swarming
131
A Gentle Seethrough Fadeout
140
Fairy Grandmothers
149
Gorgeous and Precious Fairyland Places
160
Last Page
166

A Letter from London
51
The Fairy Machine
61
Mr Gardner Receives a Package
69
Mr Gardner Persists
73
Spider Girl
81
Sincerely Yors Elsie Wright
84
The Investigation
89
Acknowledgments
167
Source Notes
169
Image Credits
178
Bibliography
179
About the Author
181
Copyright Page
182
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

Mary Losure has worked as a field botanist's assistant, family farmer, and staff reporter for Minnesota Public Radio. A longtime contributor to National Public Radio, she co-founded the independent production company Round Earth Media. The Fairy Ring is her first book for children. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

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