Alice and the Fairies, July 1917.

ENGLAND : A photograph of Frances 'Alice' Griffiths (1907-1986) taken by her cousin Elsie 'Iris' Wright (1901-1988), using her father Arthur's Midg quarter-plate camera, the first in the 'Cottingley Fairies' series. Frances, posed in the family garden, stares into the camera past dancing fairies, one of whom plays a pipe. A small waterfall tumbles into a 'beck', (dialect for ?stream?), beyond. The fairies were actually drawings by Elsie, secured in the ground with hat pins. It was a secret the girls decided to keep until the 1980s - once they realised the extent of the deception - to protect the public reputations of those who believed in the 'truth' of the images. Alice was probably the name given to Frances by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) in an attempt to conceal the girls' identities when he published the photographs. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)