International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals
Periodical:The Summerland Messenger
The Summerland Messenger: cover of an issue
Summary:
Summary by:
Pat Deveney
Title:
Summerland Messenger.
Subtitle:
A journal of Art Literature and Science for the Progressive Lyceum and the Family Fireside.
Other Titles:
Summer Land Messenger
Published:
1874-1876?
Frequency:
Monthly
Location:
Brattleboro, VT, then Boston, and Amherst, MA.
Language:
English.
Editor(s):
T.P. James.
Description:

1/1, June 1874. 75 cents a year, 16 pp., 10 x 12.

James was a "tramp printer" who settled in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he began to tout himself as "Dickens' Medium." He published Part Second of the Mystery of Edwin Drood by the Spirit-Pen of Charles Dickens (1874) and started the Summerland Messenger which printed other communications from the spirit of Dickens. The Religio-Philosophical Journal for January 2, 1875, noted that the journal in December had started a new Dickens' story, "Bockley Wicklesheep," only one segment of which, alas, has survived. The physical description of the journal is given in George P. Rowell & Co.'s American Newspaper Directory, 1876, which says the journal was begun in 1873.

Other Sources:American Antiquarian Society.
Issues:Summerland Messenger V2 N4 Mar 2 1875