This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/9/2023
CUMBERLAND, Stuart (1857 – 1922). A Thought-Reader’s Thoughts. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1888. FIRST EDITION. Publisher’s blue cloth stamped in gilt and red. Portrait frontispiece of Cumberland behind tissue. 8vo. Bookplates of W.K. D’Arcy and John Fisher. Foxed, front hinge split, cloth and endsheets stained. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED on the half-title, “To W. Knox D’Arcy Esq. / With the author’s kind regards, Stuart C. Cumberland.” The first inscribed and signed example we have encountered.
Cumberland never claimed any supernatural power, though he was able to “read thoughts.” In later years he became friendly with Houdini, as both were fervent opponents of spiritualism. The man to whom this book is inscribed, W. K. D’Arcy, was an Australian gold miner instrumental in negotiating the first rights to drill for oil in what is modern day Iran, and was the first director of the firm that became British Petroleum (BP).