BESTERMAN, Theodore Deodatus Nathaniel.

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Crystal-Gazing: First and only contemporary edition of this scholarly study, commended by the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research as a "painstaking compilation" (21, 1924, pp. 358-9), and still referenced today. Uncommon in commerce, this copy preserved in exceptional condition, retaining the scarce jacket, and with an authorial inscription establishing a superb SPR association.Besterman (1904-76) was a fascinating character. Born in Lodz, he left for London as a youth. Apparently entirely an autodidact, he claimed that he educated himself at the British Library, in 1924 he published a bibliography of the works of theosophist Annie Besant, and in 1927 became investigating officer for the SPR, a post he held until 1935, executing his duties with the utmost rigour. This, his second work and perhaps best regarded, was described as the first study to attempt to address the subject "in a purely scientific spirit" (jacket blurb).In the mid-30s he turned to bibliography with similar enthusiasm, becoming special lecturer at the London School of Librarianship, and publishing extensively, works included his "classic" (ODNB) The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography. Following service with the Army Bureau of Current Affairs during WWII and UNESCO in the immediate aftermath, he redirected his considerable energies to "publishing the correspondence and works of Voltaire, a liberal spirit with whom he identified. Living, by agreement with the city of Geneva, in Voltaire's former

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