The Shadow World

by Hamlin Garland

This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It contains classical literature works from over two thousand years. Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of international literature classics available in printed format again - worldwide.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

Stories and novels of American writer Hannibal Hamlin Garland include the autobiographical A Son of the Middle Border and depict the hardships that Midwestern farmers endured.

People best know this American novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer for his fiction, involving hard-working Midwestern farmers.

Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garlin of Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock. The boy was named after Hannibal Hamlin, then candidate for vice-president under Abraham Lincoln. He lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but settled in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. He read diligently in the public library there. His first success came in 1891 with Main-Traveled Roads, a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of Ulysses S. Grant in McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898. The same year, Garland traveled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired The Trail of the Gold Seekers (1899). He lived on a farm between Osage, and St. Ansgar, Iowa for quite some time. Many of his writings are based on this era of his life.

A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short fiction, and essays. In 1917, he published his autobiography, A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel, A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary. Garland naturally became quite well known during his lifetime and had many friends in literary circles. He was made a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918.

After moving to Hollywood, California, in 1929, he devoted his remaining years to investigating psychic phenomena, an enthusiasm he first undertook in 1891. In his final book, The Mystery of the Buried Crosses (1939), he tried to defend such phenomena and prove the legitimacy of psychic mediums.

A friend, Lee Shippey, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, recalled Garland's regular system of writing:
. . . he got up at half past five, brewed a pot of coffee and made toast on an electric gadget in his study and was at work by six. At nine o'clock he was through with work for the day. Then he breakfasted, read the morning paper and attended to his personal mail. . . . After luncheon he and Mrs. Garland would take a long drive . . . . Sometimes they would drop in on Will Rogers, Will Durant, Robert Benchley or even on me, for their range of friends was very wide. . . . After dinner they would go to a show if an exceptionally good one were in town, otherwise one of their daughters would read aloud.

Garland died at age 79, at his home in Hollywood on March 4, 1940. A memorial service was held three days later near his home in Glendale, California. His ashes were buried in Neshonoc Cemetery in West Salem, Wisconsin on March 14; his poem "The Cry of the Age" was read by Reverend John B. Fritz.

The Hamlin Garland House in West Salem is a historical site.

Reviews

[Boris · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing 1907 precursor to Hamlin's 1938 "Forty Years of Psychic Research" which summarizes some of his psychic research up to that point in his life. As expected it contains additional information that was not included in the later work.

Hamlin was a noted novelist of his era, very well known then and a household name and largely forgotten now. His sideline interest was doing psychic investigations with supposed mediums. He was well connected in both the literary and psychic investigations worlds.

There's also additional information on others and other noted phenomena or experiences of the time. The author mentions Florence Cook and her 'guide', Katie King, which other works deem as one of the notable frauds of the time. Hamlin, who was a skeptic's skeptic, based on Crookes' experiences with her, apparently that Cook was real. There are often contradictory accounts like that as one reads thru different authors.

Hamlin goes into great detail of the measures he took to prevent fraud by mediums and even though he found the phenomena at times amazing he really wasn't sure what to think. As he said in Forty Years, he refused to draw any conclusion as to what caused the phenomena and did not embrace the spirit theory or anything with religious overtones. He said there was definitely something there but he didn't know what.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a study into the supernatural, it was very thorough; however, I feel as though Garland questions himself and the methods used in the research unnecessarily. Overall, the study was straightforward and captivating enough to continue reading, I do wish Garland would have offered more definitive speculation of his opinions on the study's many tests rather than leaving readers with a somewhat ambiguous denial of the researcher's own findings.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This. is the review of the stand alone book 'The Shadow World' published on kindle, March 23, 2011.

A record of several 'paranormal phenomena' that Mr. Garland observed up to 17 years before the book was written, 1908.