The photographer is Frederick Hudson (1818-1889). The image was taken in Hudson's studios in Kensington Park, London in the 1870s.

Having commenced in 1872, Hudson is credited with being the first spirit photographer in Britain and worked with the medium Georgiana Houghton. He was exposed as a fraud on several occasions using double exposures and other tricks to create his photos. Often the sitter is framed in such a way to allow room for the 'ghost' to fit into the photo.

This image is off a lithographic reproduction likely to have been reproduced from a printed publication.

Sepia glass slide of a seance showing five men and a spirit joining hands around a table.

In this glass slide a female spirit appears to be crowning a man with a wreath. We can only imagine how flattering an image this must have been for the man in the photograph.

As with many spirit photographs, the 'living person' appears to be framed in a way to comfortably permit the addition of the spirit in the photograph, which obviously undermines the credibility of the image.

In other glass slides, the 'living person' is shown looking directly at the spirit. It is not known if the subject and photographer in these images could actually see the spirit while the photograph was being taken or whether it appeared after processing. One suspects the photographer may have told the subject where to look and then added the 'spirit' later or the 'spirit' was present already on a pre-exposed photographic plate so the photographer knew where to direct the subject to look.

The woman in the photograph is Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–99), an English leader in the early spiritualist movement. She visited the US and was invited by the famous spiritualist, Horace Day to host seances. She went on to became a 'trance lecturer' and delivered speeches across the country.

The photographer is William Mumler (1832-1884). Mumler was an American jeweller who left his job to become a spirit photographer. His first spirit photograph was a self-portrait which apparently show his deceased cousin.

His business boomed at a time when large numbers of people had lost relatives during the American Civil War (1861-1865). His most famous photograph was of Mary Todd Lincoln with the ghost of her husband Abraham Lincoln. 

Eventually Mumler was taken to court for fraud, where the famous showman PT Barnum testified against him. While not found guilty, his career as a spirit photographer was over.

The man in this glass slide is Sir William Crookes (1832-1919), a prominent scientist known for his discovery of thallium and his research into cathode rays. Crookes was also a spiritualist, who wanted to investigate spiritualism using scientific methods.

Originally Crookes had been sceptical about the phenomenon and believed it to be mere trickery. His observations and photographs of the young medium Florence Cook (c1856–1904) brought his investigations to critical attention. Crookes published a report in 1874 asserting that Florence Cook, as well as other mediums, were producing genuine spirits. It caused an uproar.

The image on the left is the celebrated spirit Katie King, who Crookes was able to photograph several times. King was said to have appeared first between 1871 and 1874 in seances conducted by Florence Cook in London, and later in 1874-1875 in New York. Cook would materialise King, who walked and talked to participants in the seance. She even allowed herself to be weighed and measured.

Though Katie King resembled Florence Cook, others claimed King was taller than Cook, with a larger face and different hair and skin. They also claimed King and Cook were both visible at the same moment, so Cook could not have been playing the role of the spirit.

The man in this glass slide is William Terry (1836-1913), leader of the Victorian Spiritualist movement in Australia. When spiritualism became popular in Victoria, Terry and his father gave up their drapery business for full-time mediumistic work.

William became a spiritualist bookseller, medium, trance and magnetic healer, and clairvoyant herbalist in Russell Street, Melbourne. His shop became the headquarters of the movement. In September 1870 he launched the Harbinger of Light, which became the Australasian publication of the faith.

This is a glass slide of 'automatic writing', spirit writing made by a medium. Automatic writing is alleged to be created by spirits taking control of the medium's hand who remains largely unconscious while the message is being transcribed.

The message on this glass slide appears to read:

Friend Phillips –

You may say to your readers that our medium is here to demonstrate this phenomena and that the good work will go on, in a quiet and convincing manner – signed Guides – XXXXX XXXXX

Then upside down it reads:

I am happy and glad to come to you now. XXXX up in your work and look for better XXXX. XXXX will be victorious. The two worlds will be the great help.

A black-and-white glass slide showing a man sitting on a chair with arms folded over his knees. He is looking to his left at a spirit, partially superimposed over his left arm and chest.

This is a good example of the sitter being directed where to look so the spirit could be superimposed carefully into the photo. The pot plant completes the composition.

Sepia-toned glass slide showing a female spirit with a man and boy superimposed over her. 

This black-and-white glass slide purports to show a man sitting on a chair with a spirit hovering at his left knee.

This is an unusual photograph among the collection of glass slide spirit images. The spirit appears to be of an African child wearing a white robe. The spirit is unusually large compared to the man and is clearly smiling.

It seems to be poorly superimposed into the photo and is not of the same quality of other images in the AJ Abbott collection.

A black-and-white glass slide showing two spirits - one behind and one to the left of a woman sitting on a chair.

In many of these glass slides the photographer has left a convenient space in which the spirit can be superimposed. Less common are images where the spirit, or in this case, spirits, are crowded into the image and partially cut across the photo of the living subject.

A black-and-white glass slide showing two men sitting opposite each other, hands resting on a table, a spirit hovering behind them.

This photograph appears to show that the two men themselves have conjured the spirit that appears between them. One man is clearly looking at the spirit.

This photograph is by Édouard Isidore Buguet (1840-1901). Buguet was a French medium and spirit photographer who became very famous in the early 1870s.

In 1875, the Parisian police raided his studio and discovered Buguet's photographic plates had pre-exposed images on them that allowed him to make his 'spirit images'. Buguet admitted his photographs were fraudulent and he served a year in gaol.

The magician Harry Houdini claimed the police also discovered figures and dolls heads at Buguet's studio that he used as props to make the pre-exposed images. Despite his confession, many people still believed Buguet's images to be genuine.

A black-and-white glass slide showing a fashionably dressed man sitting sideways on a chair, elbow resting over the side, with a spirit hovering at his left.

This is a typical example of the photographer placing his subject to one side of the frame so that a spirit can be comfortably superimposed in the composition.

It's difficult to accept now that people believed these images to be genuine.

Emma Hardinge Britten (1823–99) was an English leader in the early spiritualist movement. As a child she developed a reputation for her apparent abilities as a spirit medium and for predicting people's futures.

She visited the US and attended seances where she had mystical experiences. Eventually she was invited by the famous spiritualist, Horace Day, to host seances. She went on to became a 'trance lecturer' and delivered speeches across the country.

From 1878 to 1879, Britten and her husband worked as spiritualist missionaries in Australia and New Zealand.

This glass slide shows a man sitting on a chair with his eyes closed and a spirit partly superimposed over his left arm and chest.

Most glass slides of spirits show the 'living' subject with their eyes open, sometimes looking directly at the spirit. Whether the long photographic exposure time led to the man being photographed with his eyes closed, whether the man himself is the medium conjuring the spirit, or some other reason, is not clear.

The spirit too is unusual. The spirits in these photographs are often young woman in diaphanous robes. This spirit looks vaguely like a Native American, possibly with a feathered headdress and wearing a traditional buckskin jacket. The spirit looks something like a statue rather than a real person superimposed into the photograph.

The photographer for this image is Frederick Hudson (1818-1889). It was taken in Hudson's studios in Kensington Park, London in the 1870s.

Having commenced in 1872, Hudson is credited with being the first spirit photographer in Britain and worked with the medium Georgiana Houghton. He was exposed as a fraud on several occasions using double exposures and other tricks to create his photos. Often the sitter is framed in such a way to allow room for the 'ghost' to fit into the photo.

This image is off a lithographic reproduction likely to have been reproduced from a printed publication.

In this glass slide, a man looks up to his right at an illuminated spirit.

Many spirit images seem to be of people partially covered in robes that are superimposed into the image. The 'spirit' in this image looks very much like it was created from a pre-existing photograph, suggesting that the female spirit was perhaps someone known to the sitter.