MARGERY

Literally (she was saucy and charming) and figuratively there has been no more entrancing medium than Margery who carried the vogue of spiritualism to its apogee in the '20's and who was chiefly notable-notorious for the ectoplasmic nebulae which hovered over her seances. The story of her life is justified by more than the confidential correspondence with minister-psychologist-researcher Dr. Walter Franklin Prince now made available; there has been little about her in years -- even these recent ones so attuned to otherworldly forces -- and goodness knows many things happened in that old Boston house as tables tilted, psychic music trilled, and her so-called brother ""Walter"" whistled or spoke in a voice which sounded just like hers. In spite of the successive investigations (Harvard, Scientific American, American and British Societies of Psychical Research), she appeared to be ""irreproachable"" -- even Houdini failed to break her -- until in 1932 she was exposed and the author concludes that she was obviously a fraud. This does not diminish any of the interest in Margery or Tietze's sympathetically intelligent presentation -- here -- tilt it toward any susceptible reader.