A True Relation of the Apparition

Daniel Defoe's eerie "true relation" recounts a ghostly visitation in Canterbury on September 8, 1705, when Mrs. Bargrave is said to have received a call from her recently deceased friend, Mrs. Veal. Framed as carefully attested fact and supported by respectable witnesses, the story uses the language of documentary truth to make the supernatural feel disturbingly plausible. The narrator, with a wry and skeptical edge, explains how the tale helped promote a neglected religious book, then reconstructs the long friendship and separation of the two women before leading into the uncanny encounter itself. What makes the apparition so unsettling is its ordinary manner: Mrs. Veal speaks of books on death, tea, gowns, mourning rings, and household gossip in the plain, domestic language of middle-aged women, yet refuses the normal courtesies of touch and greeting. When news arrives that Mrs. Veal died the day before, the tale's credibility and mystery intensify together. More than a ghost story, it is also a devotional warning about mortality, repentance, judgment, and the certainty of a life to come. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.