The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln's Ghost

"In 1869, William Mumler was brought to trial in New York City. Technically, it was for consumer fraud. But the “spirit photographs” he had claimed to have taken – in which ghostly figures hover behind the living subjects – were about more than just getting your money’s worth. Peter Manseau deftly outlines a century to explain how war, technology, religion and commerce came together in a perfect storm, in a court case that was fundamentally about the limits of faith. And he finds a clever balance between historical remove and the immediacy of suspense, making The Apparitionists a biography about why we believe."