We Hear the Dead

(Formerly titled High Spirits)

"A delightful discovery, mixing the right combination of gothic mystery and conspiracy." ~ Brian Trent, author of Remembering Hypatia

"Gone With the Wind meets The Titanic ..." ~ Rick Barber, 850 KOA in Colorado

We Hear the Dead is the story of Maggie and Kate Fox, two teenage girls who, in 1848, shocked the town of Hydesville, New York by conversing with the ghost of a murdered man supposedly buried in the cellar of their house.  The ghost communicated by strange knocking sounds, heard only in the presence of the two girls, aged fourteen and eleven. When the girls' alarmed parents removed them from the house, the knocking sounds followed them.  Was it a case of paranormal ability—a hoax—or a prank gone wrong?

The story of the Fox Sisters is true. We Hear the Dead is a work of historical fiction, but it closely parallels the events in the very real life of Maggie Fox, a girl coming of age in a society where women were restricted by their gender and their class.  Under the close direction of their older sister and manager, Mrs. Leah Fish, Maggie and Kate became professional spirit mediums and founders of a new belief system called Spiritualism.  Their unorthodox career not only made them celebrities, it made them objects of skepticism and scorn and sometimes put their lives at risk.

Spiritualism, or the belief that the dead can communicate with the living, spread like wildfire in the East Coast society of America in the second half of the nineteenth century.  It blossomed in a society where lecture halls had become the major source of entertainment for a public hungering to learn more about life and death, scientific progress, philosophy, and exploration of the globe. This fascination with new worlds of discovery brings a major figure into the story of Maggie Fox's life—the eminent explorer and gentleman adventurer, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who attended a seance in Philadelphia out of curiosity and left smitten with the medium.

Dr. Kane was as famous in the 1850's as he is obscure today.  He really did live all the adventures he recounts in We Hear the Dead, and a few more besides. He was a household name in the nineteenth century, and when rumors circulated about his romantic attachment to the spirit medium Maggie Fox, reporters pursued him as relentlessly as the paparazzi badger movie stars today.  Many of the letters in We Hear the Dead written by Dr. Kane are based on the real correspondence between him and Maggie Fox, including the poem he wrote for her.

Almost all of the characters who appear in We Hear the Dead were real people whose lives intersected that of Maggie Fox.  To learn more about these people, follow the links below.

HISTORICAL CHARACTERS IN WE HEAR THE DEAD

The Fox Sisters (Maggie, Kate, and Leah)

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane        Amy Post            Horace Greeley                E.E. Lewis

Sir John Franklin                    Jane Appleton Pierce

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