Frontispiece 1. Introduction 2. Thomas Perks and his Circle 3. Arthur Bedford and his Circle 4. The Second Phase: Bristol and London 1760-79 5. Evangelical Publishing 6. Astrologers 7. The Nineteenth Century: Medicine, Spiritualism and Christianity 8. Conclusion 9. Appendix Select Bibliography

Despite supernatural scepticism, stories about spirits were regularly printed and shared throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This case-study in the transmission of a single story (of a young gunsmith near Bristol conjuring spirits, leading to his early death) reveals both how and why successive generations found meaning in such accounts.