Leonore or Leonora: A Note on Mrs. Piper's First Name

1988. Leonore or Leonora: A note on Mrs. Piper's first name. Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, 82, 281-290.

In recent years, many authors in parapsychology have come to spell Mrs. Piper's first name as Leonore rather than as Leonora. Leonora, however, was the spelling commonly adopted by Mrs. Piper's contemporaries. Moreover, all known examples of Mrs. Piper's signature show the a ending. With Leonora established as the correct spelling, one wonders how the e variant came to dominate. An examination of publication patterns and responses to inquiries of recent authors who have used Leonore reveals no clear single source for the varient. There is, however, an evident tendency for authors to follow one another without firm or independent authority. Errors such as the spelling of Mrs. Piper's first name, trivial in themselves, point to larger problems of reliability of sources in scholarly research.

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