A Photographic Phantasm

Inside this edition

Every LitLab edition is illustrated from the text itself — the world of the book mapped, its people drawn, its scenes staged. 8 plates are open to everyone in this book; here are 8 of them.

• The Farmhouse Road and the Village StudioThe doctor’s rural circuit connects the family farmhouse, the mail route and the village photographer whose negative makes the impossible visible.
• A Photographic Phantasm — Instruments of DoubtMedical practice, family grief and photographic evidence form a small system of ordinary things under supernatural pressure.
• The Doctor and the Farmhouse Family
• The Mother — Profile
• The Living Child — Profile
• A Doctor's DoubtI have always believed that there is a simple and natural explanation for all seemingly supernatural happenings; but I recently had occasion to question this belief. I cannot doubt my own personal knowledge, nor can I deny what my own eyes have seen, therefore, I cannot dismiss it as a figment of imagination. The facts are as follows:
• The Rural CallThere is a rural section near me into which I frequently make visits in the practice of my profession as a physician. The people are a quaint, simple and kindly sort, honest, unsophisticated. I was called, not long ago, to see a little girl in this neighborhood and found her very ill and with a poor chance for recovery. She was the younger of two children of a very intelligent farmer and his wife, the latter, however, having a rather nervous temperament. I had treated the woman before the little girl was born, and, although she, too, was above the average in intelligence in her neighborhood, she was a person who would be classed medically as a neurasthenic.
• No Picture of the ChildRealizing the seriousness of her child’s sickness, she was becoming very nervous, so much so that I found it necessary to leave her some sedatives. She was worrying a great deal because she did not have a picture of the little girl. It seemed that the family had planned on several occasions to have a group picture made in the village, but each time something had prevented their doing so. This, she informed me, was preying on her mind and accentuating her grief.

This edition

Title

A Photographic Phantasm

Author

Paul Crumpler, M. D.

First published

1923

Illustrated plates

13 original artworks · 8 open to everyone

Chapters

1 · about 681 words

Reading time

3 min

Language

EN

Formats

Read online · EPUB and PDF download with a subscription

Publisher

LitLab — The Illustrated Classics

On LitLab since

September 2026

Rights

Text in the public domain. Illustrations and edition © LitLab.

Source text

Project Gutenberg #69606