Cottingley fairy photographs

Five photos taken in 1917 and 1920 by two teenage girls at Cottingley (Yorkshire) purported to show fairies dancing in a nearby glen; they convinced Edward Gardner, a prominent Theosophist, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Over 60 years later, the girls admitted to a hoax, originally simply meant to deceive their family (Yorkshire Evening Post (19 Mar. 1983); The Times (9 Apr. 1983). The photographic process itself had not been faked, but the objects photographed were painted cardboard cut-outs pinned on to bushes. The photos and related documents fetched £22,000 at auction in July 1998.

For the original report, see Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Strand Magazine (Dec. 1920), 436-8; and Edward L. Gardner, Fairies: A Book of Real Fairies (1945; many reprints). For fuller discussion, see Geoffrey Crawley, ‘The Astonishing Affair of the Cottingley Fairies’, published in ten parts in The British Journal of Photography (1982-3); Cooper, 1990; Paul Smith, in Narv´ez, 1991: 371-405.