Item #49789 Visits from the World of Spirits; or, interesting anecdotes of the Dead: containing very curious Narratives of the Appearances of many departed Spirits on particular Occasions, to Friends, Relatives, etc. being an Impartial Survey of the most remarkable Accounts of Apparitions, Dreams, Ghosts, Spectres, and Visions. That have been recorded in several Ages of the World; together with some Originals to which is Prefixed an Introduction by the Editor. ANONYMOUS, Ghosts.
Visits from the World of Spirits; or, interesting anecdotes of the Dead: containing very curious Narratives of the Appearances of many departed Spirits on particular Occasions, to Friends, Relatives, etc. being an Impartial Survey of the most remarkable Accounts of Apparitions, Dreams, Ghosts, Spectres, and Visions. That have been recorded in several Ages of the World; together with some Originals to which is Prefixed an Introduction by the Editor.

Visits from the World of Spirits; or, interesting anecdotes of the Dead: containing very curious Narratives of the Appearances of many departed Spirits on particular Occasions, to Friends, Relatives, etc. being an Impartial Survey of the most remarkable Accounts of Apparitions, Dreams, Ghosts, Spectres, and Visions. That have been recorded in several Ages of the World; together with some Originals to which is Prefixed an Introduction by the Editor.

London: Printed for the proprietor, and sold by L. Wayland, 1791. First Edition. Hardcover. Small octavo. (ii) xx, [25]-302pp [i.e. 314pp]. Full leather binding with gilt title label on spine. Original period leather boards, skillfully rebacked by renowned London book-binder and restoration expert Bernard C. Middleton (1924 - 2019). An extraordinary early collection of "genuine" accounts of appearances by ghosts and spirits. The book begins with an Introduction by the anonymous editor in which he argues the reality of such phantom visitations, observing that aside from them being attested to in many different cultures and time periods, reference to them can also be found in Scripture. There follows a series of narratives, ranging anywhere between two and two dozen pages, recounting a wide variety of incidents, from often recounted stories, such as the appearance of Dutchess of Mazarine to Madam de Beauclair and the appearance of James Haddock to Francis Taverner, to quite obscure stories from primary sources recorded by the editor himself. The editor clearly went far and wide in search of his material, with literary sources including accounts taken from Webster's The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, Glanvill's Saducismus triumphatus, Satans Invisible World Discovered, Beaumont's Treatise on Spirits, Walton's The Life of Dr. John Donne to popular works like Wesley's Armenian Magazine and Eliza Haywood's magazine The Female Spectator. Some of the tales without any stated provenance are particularly interesting, including one in which one of the witnesses was a book seller named E. Sibley, surely the Ebenezer Sibley whose voluminous works on astrology and the occult drew much attention in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From the collection of Dr. M. H. Coleman, with his blind-stamped ex-libris seal on the front free endpaper. Page-edges browned, some discoloration & minor scuffing to title-page which has obscured a few words (see photograph), otherwise a solid, complete VG+ copy of an interesting and rare work. Item #49789

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