Edison's Lost Plan To Record Voices Of Dead

Thomas Edison may have succeeded in inventing a device to record the voices of the living but he failed to pick up sounds from beyond the grave.

According to a long-lost chapter from the American's memoirs, which is being republished in France, the inventor of the phonograph spent some time trying to come up a way of hearing the utterances of those who had died.

Details of his work were contained in his Diary And Sundry Observations, which was published posthumously in 1948, but left out of subsequent English-language editions.

But when the missing chapter is reproduced in The Kingdom Of The Afterlife, French readers will be able to read the details of his dabbling in the occult.

In 1870, Edison amplified the sound from his phonographs - the precursor of the gramophone and record player - in an attempt to find a basis for his theory that the voices of the dead could be recorded.

He also made a deal with an engineer, William Walter Dinwiddie, that whoever died first would try to send a message back.

Philippe Baudouin, a French radio presenter and philosopher, who writes a commentary to the chapter in the new book, said: "This little-known episode in the history of talking machines was of special interest to me, as I'm a radio man.

"(Edison) imagined being able to record the voice of another being, to be able to make audible that which isn't - the voice of the dead."