from a suspect. George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, You Can't Take It with You, a play which premiered on Broadway in 1936, where one of the characters, Mrs. Kirby, believes in Spiritualism. Noël Coward, Blithe Spirit (1941), a comic play about a novelist who researches the occult and hires a medium. A séance brings back the ghost of his first wife, causing havoc for the novelist and his second wife. Gladys Mitchell, When I Last Died (1941), an investigation of a trio of murders that take place in a house full of poltergeists. H.D. Majic Ring. Written in 1943-4 as "Delia Alton", not published until 2009. Fictionalises H.D's early involvement with Lord Hugh Dowding and the "majic ring" of Spiritualism. William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley (1946) about a carnival where the mentalist Zeena develops a "code" act, where performers memorize verbal cues that allow them to appear psychic by accurately answering written audience questions. Her pupil Stan transforms himself into Reverend Carlisle, an upstanding Spiritualist preacher offering séance sessions. Muriel Spark, The Bachelors, a 1960 novel that follows the factions of a Spiritualist group opposing and supporting a fraudulent medium. A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance. In the Victorian half of this 1990 novel, many preoccupations of the time are discussed and experienced by the characters. Spiritualism is treated as a fraud on the credulous. Sarah Waters, Affinity (1999): This historical novel is about a depressed young woman in turn-of-the-century England. She is depressed because she had been having a lesbian affair with a friend, who decided to cut off their relations and marry a man. In an effort to lift her depression, she volunteers at a women's prison, where she meets a beautiful young Spiritualist, Selena Dawes, to whom she feels romantically attracted. The protagonist learns about Spiritualism as she falls deeper in love with Selena. Hilary Mantel. Beyond Black (2005). The book's central character is a medium named Alison Hart who, along with her assistant/business partner/manager, Colette, takes her one-woman psychic show on the road, travelling to venues around the Home Counties, and providing her audience with a point of contact between this world and the next. Dianne K. Salerni. We Hear the Dead (2010). Historical novel about the Fox Sisters, credited with launching spiritualism, only for one of them to admit later that it was all a delusion. Michelle Black, Sèance in Sepia (2011): In this mystery