Happy Halloween listeners! In this bumper-bonus episode we talk about our first non-M.R. James ghost story, ‘A Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal‘, a fascinating early ghost story attributed to Daniel Defoe.
We also interview Leah Moore and John Reppion about their recently-published graphic novel of ‘Ghost stories of an Antiquary‘.
Finally, we are delighted to announce the publication of our new ebook, ‘Stories that inspired M.R. James‘, which features the next twelve stories we will be covering on the podcast and which is available to purchase right now!
Phew, what an episode!
Show notes:
- ‘The Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal’ (Wikipedia)
- Daniel Defoe (Wikipedia)
- Literacy rates in the 17th Century (UMassD)
- Charles Drelincourt (Wikipedia)
- ‘Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions’ by Daniel Defoe (Archive.org)
- List of other works on the supernatural by Daniel Defoe (indiana.edu)
- ‘Defoe’s Spirits, Apparitions and the Occult’ by Maximillian Novak (illinoisstate.edu)
- ‘Visions of an Unseen World: Ghost Beliefs and Ghost Stories in Eighteenth Century’ By Sasha Handley (books.google.co.uk)
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Tags: Daniel Defoe, ebook, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, John Reppion, Leah Moore, M.R. James, Relation of the Apparition of Mrs Veal, Stories that inspired M.R. James
Re Defoe getting the day of the week wrong – did you take account of England still using the old Julian calendar at the time?
Also how odd is that the names Sherlock and Watson appear in this story?!
Fair play to you lads for covering this story at all, I found it nigh-impenetrable. You’d think spending years immersed in antiquarian literature would help with such a story, but alas, the lack of any sane punctuation really hampered by basic comprehension of the story.
But not matter! I’m looking forward to reading through this e-book now, there’s some stuff in here I hadn’t heard of before and I think it’s going to be an interesting next few months. HPPodcraft have covered one or two of the stories in there and I’m looking forward to your take on those stories when they arrive. Onward with season 2!
Just in case it becomes useful – the usual pronunciation is BULL-wer LITT-on.
For books, the publisher normally paid a lump sum per volume to the author (which is why you get all those multi-volume novels) and kept any profits. As far as I know, pamphlets were usually treated the same way.
Thanks Roger! I was wondering about the economics of that. So maybe no vested interest by Defoe in terms of sales volume?
No vested interest, but the publisher might have paid Defoe a lump sum to promote the book.
Bulwer-Lytton. The bloke who gave literature the epic opening line ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ 🙂
So happy for “season 2”!
So glad to have you guys still in the ring! I enjoyed this episode, in fact specifically because it dealt with some pop culture of the day that is basically erased in _our_ day.
Gotta find some way, and some money, to contribute a bit. More years of all this, please!!
Great to have you back guys and looking forward to the coming episodes!