Keeping in Touch: An Anthology of the Victorian SeanceMain MenuIntroductionFurther ReadingI - Spiritualism and Its BelieversII - Ambivalent SkepticsIII - Scoffers and FraudsIV - The Private SeanceV - The Public SeanceWork CitedMegan Brueningb3bbdc9bd1941527cc9ff27849ef1a643abdd7d3
12016-11-23T12:45:27-05:00Till Death Do Us Part3plain2016-12-16T21:06:47-05:00 C.M. Davies’s story, “Till Death Do Us Part” was published in Belgravia: A London Magazine in 1872. A fascinating short story, Davies tells of a young university student who experiments with spiritualism (and mesmerism in particular) at his middle-class home. The narrator’s actions come back to haunt him though after one of his mesmerism subjects, the family governess, dies and a strange series of supernatural phenomena follow. Although the story does not contain a traditional séance, I include it because it vividly demonstrates the fear that spiritualism led to improper associations between individuals of different genders and classes.