Tales of a Thought Reader

In 1879 England, a butcher-shop clerk, Charley Garner, (1857-1922) was hired by the American performer, W.I. Bishop, to be his secretary to handle his burgeoning social demands. Bishop’s sensational performances of apparent thought reading, and the gold and bank notes that flowed from them, showed Garner a lucrative world that he had never known existed. Garner wanted in. In Victorian Society, however, butcher-shop clerks were nonentities. To join Society, Garner created the upper class persona of Stuart Charles Francis Cumberland, attempted to match Bishop’s remarkable feats, and became a thought reader. Tales of a Thought Reader, though historical fiction, reflect some of Cumberland’s real experiences with impossible murders, errant nobility, and aggressive disbelief not only in his apparent powers, but also in his own persona. Calamity, even prison, was never more than a misstep away.