[American Spiritualism; Women.] Art Magic; or, Mundane, Sub-Mundane and Super-Mundane Spiritualism.

[Emma Hardinge BRITTEN (1823-1899, "editor")] 

                                           Manuscript erasures & annotations

[American Spiritualism.] Art Magic; or, Mundane, Sub-Mundane and Super-Mundane Spiritualism. New York: Published by the Author, At New York, America,  1876. First edition, octavo.  467 pp., title and dedication printed in colors, illustrated (waterstains along lower margin of most leaves). Publisher’s red cloth (worn, edges and spine ends worn and chipped).   

See images.  For a sample of Emma H. Britten's handwriting see a postcard we are using for comparative purposes only (not included in sale-- source http://www.ehbritten.org/images/emma_writing.jpg )

Emma Hardinge Britten‘s copy, with her name and address inscribed on front free endpaper, dated January, 1877.  Below is an early owner’s name, Bancroft Hill, Johns Hopkins University.  Title page has the name John B. Hill, along with the initialed comment, “Let it ever be remembered that all the erasures & other annotations found in this book were made by some former owner and none are to be charged or credited to me. J.B.H.”  Presumably, Hill is referring to the extensive pencil markings and notations found throughout the text.

 While it remains speculative, these "erasures & other annotations" are arguably by Mrs. Britten herself-- the name is more ownership than inscription; the handwriting is similar to an example from this period (see link--particularly the words "Ghost Land"); some notations refer to the author in the third-person, as Mrs. Britten does in the introduction and continued to do long after its publication. 

One notation reads “I shall conclude this long reading by quotation on the theme from the author’s recently published work Ghost Land.“  Ghost Land was also published in 1876, suggesting that the annotations and erasures are contemporaneous, possibly for a lecture.  Following the publication of Ghost Land and Art Magic, both she and her husband, William Godwin Britten, traveled as lecturers across America, then onto Australia and New Zealand, before settling in Manchester, England. 

Authorship of the book itself, as with Ghost Land, remains unclear, with many scholars accepting that Emma Hardinge Britten wrote them and then referred to herself as the editor, as one scholar wrote, "to test the waters of acceptance by her fellow Spiritualists. As an anonymous author she could slowly offer her occult ideas and still be associated with them only as the translator and editor." (Howe, Lisa A., "Spirited Pioneer: The Life of Emma Hardinge Britten" (2015). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2292. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/2292).  

It's worth noting that the introduction states, "A volume will be printed entitled 'Art Magic; or, Mundane, Super-Mundane, Sub-Mundane Spiritism.' The work not to be published or sold by any professional firm, nor submitted for review to any professional critic. To meet the actual cost of publication, 500 subscribers at $5 a piece will be required.  After the required number of copies are drawn off, the type, plates, etc., of this work are to be destroyed..."  As with everything about this publication, the limitation is dubious and the subject of much debate.   Marc Demarest's essay in Art Magic: The Annotated Edition (2011) sides with earlier writers who claimed something closer to 1500 copies had to have been issued, all textually identical but with three variant bindings (red, green & brown-- America, England, & Australia, respectively.) Either way, first editions of  Art Magic continue to be uncommon, and autographed material by Emma Hardinge Britten of any kind exceedingly rare.

“Emma Hardinge Britten was already a well-known spiritualist when she took part in the meetings in New York in 1875 that directly led to the founding of the Theosophical Society. Though the TS’s initial purpose was in flux and hardly cast in stone, its founding unleashed a surge of curiosity about alternative spiritual traditions and practices. Art Magic was Britten’s initial contribution to this surge. First published in 1876, the book saw print over a year before H. P. Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, and could be viewed as Britten’s effort to lead the pack in providing grist for the esoteric mill. It presumed to provide insights into the esoteric reality behind cruder but more commonly accepted religious belief systems. Like Isis Unveiled, Art Magic drew upon numerous sources that were not always acknowledged....

"Art Magic (whose name is an English version of the Latin ars magica) was published as being written by an unnamed European aristocrat wellversed in occult matters, with Britten credited as editor and translator. Ghost Land is attributed to the same mysterious author, with Britten again as editor and translator. But accumulating evidence suggests that she may well have been the actual author of both books.” Theosophical Society website review of Art Magic. Emma Hardinge Britten, Edited and annotated by Marc Demarest. Forest Grove, Ore.: Typhon Press, 2011.

Reference: Anyone interested in Emma Hardinge Britten should visit The Emma Hardinge Britten Archive (www.ehbritten.org).