Hester Dowden | |
|---|---|
 Hester Dowden | |
| Born | 1868 Dublin, Ireland |
| Died | 1949 |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Occupation(s) | Spiritualist Author |
| Known for | Mediumship Occultism |
| Spouse | Dr. Travers Smith |
| Children | Dorothy Travers Smith |
Hester Dowden (1868–1949), also known as Hester Travers Smith, was an Irish spiritualist medium who is most notable for having claimed to contact the spirits of Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare and other writers. Dowden's writings were published by various authors. She wrote Voices from the Void (1919), an account of her life as a medium, and Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde (1923).
Dowden was the daughter of the Irish literary scholar Edward Dowden. She used both her maiden name and her married name Hester Travers Smith. Her husband was a prominent Dublin physician. Dowden was closely linked to the Irish literary world through her father, knowing, among others W. B. Yeats and Bram Stoker. She was probably the model for the medium in Yeats's play, The Words upon the Window Pane. Her daughter, the Abbey Theatre stage designer Dorothy Travers-Smith, married the playwright Lennox Robinson.[1] Though she wrote only two books under her own name, her writings provided the basis for approximately twelve books published by other authors.[2]
- ^ Helen Sword, Ghostwriting Modernism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY., 2002, pp. 13.
- ^ Her first book was published as "Hester Travers Smith", but she was generally later known as Dowden. See Hester Dowden,Gale Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology.