Background
The authors wrote popular fiction together in the late Victorian period. Spiritualism and amateur investigations were prominent topics in contemporary culture, giving the story a setting where a parlor experiment can carry real social consequences.
Reading notes
- Distinguish what the characters observe from what they infer.
- Pay attention to who controls the instrument and the setting.
- Consider how expectation can influence the interpretation of ambiguous evidence.
Version note
Prepared from the English text supplied in the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press bilingual anthology. The site owner confirmed publication permission for this source edition on 21 October 2026. Publisher and edition details remain recorded in the rights audit.