Diary, 1905-1906, 1905-04-14 - 1906-01-07

1 Autograph Manuscript notebook dated 04/14/1905 to 01/07/1906 comprising diary entries, records of publishing correspondence, original poetry, and a scrapbook collection of train tickets, postal receipts, calling cards, press cuttings, and Autograph Letters from various correspondents. Of note is one Autograph Letter Signed dated 05/05/1898 from the poet and book collector Thomas Hutchinson to W. H. Chesson praising his novel "Name This Child" and requesting from him an autograph note to be inserted into his copy [p. 5]. The majority of this journal is taken up with records of the Chessons' experiments with an automatic writing planchette, producing "spirit letters" which are pasted into the book [pp. 24-25, 38-122]. There is a break in the diary entries between 05/17 and 12/25/1905 attributed by Chesson to a mental and spiritual crisis brought about by his increasing involvement with entities contacted through the planchette. Reference to James Milne, Arthur Garnett, Sir Charles Dilke, Nora Hopper Chesson, Chesson's book "Cruikshank", his brother Frederick William Chesson, his daughter Ann Caroline Spry Chesson, his son Dermot Chesson, and the editor of "The Occult Review", Ralph Shirley.