THE APPARITIONISTS

A story of faith and fraund in post-Civil War America, told through the lens of a photographer who claimed he could capture images of the dead.

In the early days of photography, in the death-strewn wake of the Civil War, one man seized America's imagination. A "spirit photographer", William Mumler, took portrait photographs that featured the ghostly presence of lost loved ones alongside his living subjects. Mumler became a sensation. The rich and the influential came calling.

Manseau captures a nation wracked with grief, hungry for proof of the existence of ghosts and desperate for contact with their dead husbands and sons.

The trial of Mumler on fraud charges was a circus, starring P.T. Barnum for the prosecution and the judge for the defense. The puzzle remained unsolved. Its story offers a snapshot of America at a crosscroads in its history, a nation in awe of new technology and in need of something to believe in.

Peter Manseau is the author of several nonfiction books, a winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the curator of religition at the Smithsonian's. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.