Part of the Casswiki article series Books
The Darkened Room: Women, Power and Spiritualism in Late Victorian England is a work by British historian Alex Owen, first published in 1989.
This historical study examines the major role played by women as mediums, healers, and believers in the British Spiritualist religious movement during the latter part of the nineteenth century. It is one of the most invaluable studies of femininity.
The book consists of eight chapters with an introduction and an epilogue, and notes and a bibliography that takes up over sixty pages which backs up the author’s thesis.
The author brings the reader into the world of darkened séance rooms, theatrical apparitions, and other various aspects of spiritualism, and presents the struggles between spiritualists and the medical/legal establishments over the issue of female mediumship, and provides new insights into the gendered dynamics of Victorian society.