Prentice Mulford’s Story by Prentice Mulford. First Edition.

Description

Prentice Mulford’s Story. Life by Land and Sea. N.Y.: F.J. Needham, 1889. 8vo. 299, (1)pp. First Edition.

Author, Humorist, and New Thought pioneer Amos “Prentice” Mulford (1834-1891) lived a remarkable life working as a teenage hotel operator in Sag Harbor, NY, a whaling ship cook, a gold miner, a politician, and San Francisco literary figure, before finally settling into his most famous role as a New Thought author and spiritualist.

Mulford’s path took an unexpected turn during an 1872 speaking tour Europe, accompanied by friends Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, and Charles Warren Stoddard. While in London, he met the beautiful Josephine, “Josie”, 20 years his junior, who he married and brought back to the US as his wife in 1894. As Bierce put it, the marriage was “a while in hell”. Strapped for money, Josie began a career as a model, but when Mulford discovered she was posing naked for cigarette cards, it proved a step too far. Mulford divorced his wife and sold his all possessions, retreating to a cabin in the swamps of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens. There, while setting his mind to the control of his emotions, he claimed to first make contact with the spirit world in the form of his “Swamp Angel” — later identified by one of Mulford’s friends as the deceased Empress Josephine.

Starting a second career as a New Thought author, Mulford started many of the tropes found in works like The Secret and The Power of Positive Thinking, famously coining the term “Thoughts are things” which today adorns his tombstone. After several years of success, Mulford mysteriously died at the height of his fame while sailing his one-man boat from New York harbor to Sag Harbor. After his body was found by New York Police, he was briefly confused for his publisher, F.J. Needham, as he had no identification on him at the time.