The third attempt was perhaps the most unusual. In 1873, a Brattleboro, Vermont printer, Thomas Power James, published a version which he claimed had been literally 'ghost-written' by him channeling Dickens' spirit. A sensation was created, with several critics, including Arthur Conan Doyle, a spiritualist himself, praising this version, calling it similar in style to Dickens' work; and for several decades the James version of "Edwin Drood" was common in America. Other "Drood" scholars disagree. John C. Walters "dismissit with contempt", stating that the work "is self-condemned by its futility, illiteracy, and hideous American mannerisms; the mystery itself becomes a nightmare, and the solution only deepens the obscurity."