Book Review by Michael Pilarski
by Marjorie T. Johnson. First published in English in 2014. From the Lost Archives of the Fairy Investigation Society, Authentic Reports of Fairies in Modern Times. It includes the accounts of over 400 fairy sightings collected by Marjorie Johnson.
The Fairy Investigation Society had two phases. Prior to World War II and after WWII. The FIS was suspended during WWII and its secretary at the time reports that most the records of the Society were destroyed during the war. After the war, FIS began anew and Marjorie Johnson became the FIS secretary and driving force.
This book has an amazing story that started in 1911 with the birth of Marjorie T. Johnson in England. Marjorie saw fairies from the age of six onwards. Marjorie died at the age of 100 in 2010. Here is a sentence from the book’s introduction by Simon Young: “It all began in 1955, when the British author, Marjorie Johnson, then aged 44, began to put together the material for a book entitled “Fairy Vision”. It wasn’t until Marjorie was 85 in 1996 that the book’s manuscript was finally typed up. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that Marjorie was able to hold a copy of her book in her hands, but it was in German (which she couldn’t read) because no English language publisher could be found. Subsequently in 2004 when she was 93, it was published in Italian (which she couldn’t read). This first English language edition finally made it into print in 2014 after Marjorie had died. Marjorie can’t hold the English language edition her hands, but we can. I just obtained a copy a day ago and have just begun to read through the accounts. Some are short and some are detailed. It offers the perspective of people of all ages and walks of life reporting their fairy encounters. All in all, it offers a rather large array of what fairy encounters can be like.
Of course, anyone familiar with Daphne Charter’s fairy history will see a striking resemblance in the stories of Marjorie Johnson and Daphne Charters, who was born in England in 1910, a year before Marjorie. Daphne in her 40s began compiling writings of her own interactions with fairies. Like Marjorie, she also it difficult to find English publishers who would do fairy books. Her first pamphlet The Origin, Life and Evolution of the Fairies was published in French in 1951. She self published her first book “A True Fairy Story” in 1956. In 1969 it was published in Spanish in Argentina. In 1979, Friends of the Trees Society published it in the United States. Daphne passed on in 1991 leaving Michael Pilarski to finish publishing her writings. In 2007, I arranged for publication of Forty Years with the Fairies: Volume I of Daphne’s Collected Manuscripts by RJ Stewart Books. Volumes II and III are still to come. See information on Perima.
Marjorie and Daphne lived in England at the same time and both dedicated a lot of their life energies to the fairies. Did they know each other? We may never know. They both left a legacy of fairy writings to be published posthumously after they died. Simon Young has played a similar role in bringing Marjorie Johnson’s work to light as Michael Pilarski is doing for Daphne Charters. As some of you know, Daphne Charters’ work was the inspiration for putting on our contemporary Fairy & Human Relations Congress.
In my humble opinion, if you are into fairies, you should read both of these books.
Marjorie Johnson’s book Seeing Fairies is available on Amazon for $18.55.
Daphne Charters’ book Forty Years with the Fairies is available for $23 postpaid from Michael Pilarski, PO Box 165, Hot Springs, MT 59845.
For more information on fairies and the latest incarnation of the Fairy Investigation Society, see Simon Young’s website: http://www.fairyist.com/
