The Mystery of Versailles - J. R. Sturge-Whiting

In 1904 two distinguished English ladies, visiting Versailles as tourists, had a remarkable experience.

They

imagined that, by

some strange kink in time, they were transported back to the eve of the French Revolu tion. The gardens became as they had been in 1789, the gardeners were dressed as in those days, and to crown this extraordinary experience the ladies actually had a vision of the most tragic queen in history, Marle Antoinette, sitting in the garden of the Petit Trianon awaiting the fatal hour of her arrest.

This experience they verified in many of Its details with painstaking and most commendable persistence, and in 191l published their account under the title An Adventure, which book has gone through many editions and Is still before the public. The present work is the result of a methodical sifting of the available evidence. Step by step Mr. Sturge-Whiting carefully and entirely demolishes the apparently unassailable structure erected by the distinguished ladies. He shows that their experience was perfectly normal and that such abnormality as it possesses was the result of psychological delusions, occasioned by the well-known failing of "improving" on a story after the event. Mr. Sturge-Whiting has had access to the original documents of the case In the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and he proves, without a shadow of doubt, that the whole "psychic" aspect of the story was baseless. He has destroyed the most famous ghost story in history, but in doing so has added immeasurably to our knowledge of the manner in which such delusions are com-pounded, and his book will be welcomed by all interested in psychic research. Mr.

Sturge- Whiting has already broadcast twice at the B.B.C. on the subject of An Adventure, and his many listeners will look forward to this critical work, which at the same time possesses all the fascination of an exciting detective yarn.