The Secrets of the Invisible World Disclos'd; Or, an Universal History of Apparitions Sacred and Prophane

Engravings; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 395 pages; 21 cm. [12], 395, [1] pp. Engraved frontispiece and 5 plates by J. Van der Gucht, facing pages 101, 139, 237, 295 and 370, complete. Page 146 misnumbered as issued. A reissue of the 1727 first edition sheets of “An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions” with a cancel title. This is the issue with J. Clarke, A. Millar and J. Green in the imprint. ESTC T70844. Moore 494. The book was published under the pseudonym Andrew Moreton, a name Defoe used for several of his late works. It is his wide-ranging survey of angels, devils and ghosts, from scripture to contemporary ghost stories, and it closes with the relation attested by Dr. Scott. Rebound in early 20th-century green cloth, evidently before the 1961 gift, with a period leather spine label laid down, and a library call number in white at the foot of the spine. Ex-library, Dickinson College. It has a bookplate on the front pastedown given in memory of Helen Earle Gilbert, the library name stamped on the page edges and in blind at the foot of the title, an accession number stamped on the first leaf of the Preface, and a “This book may not be taken from the library” stamp on the rear pastedown. A pencilled note in the gutter of the Preface records the book as a 1961 gift of Charles C. Sellers. This was evidently Charles Coleman Sellers, 1903-1980, Dickinson librarian and biographer of Charles Willson Peale. An early ink ownership signature at the head of the title is partly faded, and the Defoe attribution is pencilled beside the author line. The binding is sound and tight. The paper is just lightly toned, with scattered mild foxing and marginal staining. The leather label is rubbed and chipped, and the cloth shows light wear at the spine ends and corners. A very good copy, ex-library.…