‘A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs Veal, the Next Day After Her Death, to One Mrs Bargrave at Canterbury, the 8th of September, 1705’ first appeared in 1706 as a short, anonymous pamphlet printed for the bookseller B. Bragg.1
The story, told in the third person, is a short account of a woman of Canterbury finding herself briefly reunited with a long-absent friend after said friend turns up at her door at noon. One Mrs Bargrave and one Mrs Veal.
The only issue … Mrs Veal had died the previous day.
The story was presented as a genuine eyewitness account rather than a work of fiction. The original text is still unattributed to a specific author, although some speculate that it was written by Daniel Defoe, author of A Journal of The Plague Year.2 Ghostly in its very nature.
In its original printing, ‘The Apparition of Mrs Veal’ ran between 12-16 pages, printed as a pamphlet. The pamphlet states that “gentlemen and persons of quality” visited Mrs Bargrave’s Canterbury home to hear her story. The woman was even allegedly known to tell her story to rooms full of people. Such was the demand to visit a woman who’d spoken with a ‘ghost.’
It’s not a long ghost story by any means; it’s brief - comforting. Far away from many other ghost writers’ malevolent wraiths and supernatural horrors. But therein lies its charm - and also, ironically, a strain of influence to many of local writer M.R.James’s horrors.
Within the text we get glimpses of an older Canterbury, which as later substantially altered by the brutal bombings of the blitz. In the text we hear of the Beast Markets (the one in question, most likely placed near the current Canterbury Bus Station, by a gate once known as ‘Rethercheap.’)
In her Companion into Kent’ (1934) author Dorothy Gardiner presents the incident as a real event, placing it in Watling Street, No.29 (now occupied by a rather less eerie estate agent.) As a location it’s believable. Countless ghost stories line that part of the city. The street in question has its own rich and ancient history, once part of the Roman route towards London and connected to the old Pilgrims’ Way.
Evidence of the story being based on a real account, comes in the form of correspondence in the archives of Kent Archaeological Society.
The earliest known account of the story of Mrs Veal is a letter, signed “ E.B.”, from Canterbury and dated Sept. 13, 1705, only five days after the supposed event. This was followed by a second letter dated Nov. 15, 1705, from Stephen Gray of Canterbury, to John Flamsteed. Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal at the time, in Greenwich. Intriguingly, the story is then mentioned as being discussed with “a very great person.”
According to many, this “very great person” was George of Denmark, Queen Anne’s consort, to whom John Arbuthnott was physician. A member of staff at the observatory later found this correspondence and suggested that Flamsteed discussed the matter “with John Arbuthnott and others, probably at a Royal Society meeting or at Garraway’s Coffee House.”
If this is true, it was a notable feat for this ghostly encounter, starting as idle chit-chat in the backstreets and inns of Canterbury and rising all the way to the highest echelons of the royal observatory…and (probably) amongst the monarchy itself.
It should be said; the city is no stranger to ghost stories. Geoffrey Chaucer and Christopher Marlowe both explore the supernatural in their works. In Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, supernatural elements pepper the narrative, including magic and death as a figure. In Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, a Germanic scholar, makes a pact with Lucifer in exchange for knowledge and power. The Reverend Richard Barham (better known by his pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby) wrote of local legends including ‘The Hand of Glory’ and ‘The Spectre of Nell Cook’ who lurked in the shadows of the cathedral by the ‘Dark Entry.’ Charles Dickens (a man who wrote arguably the most famous ghost story of all time in ‘A Christmas Carol’) would be a frequent visitor to the city.
But back to Veal and its legacy.
Framed in realism and told as a true account, related in the third person, the story marks a shift from other supernatural tales which pre-date it. These stories are often based around religious tales, folklore or moral warnings. In this story, we get a haunting grounded in the recognisable details of a living city. It is placed in a domestic setting, with named locations, witness testimony and precise descriptions of clothing, conversation and travel. Veal’s ghost seeks to reconcile friendship and offer comfort to a friend long absent.
The story may have influenced another Kentish writer: [M.R. James], (/20c/20c-jamesmr-biography)born in Goodnestone, near Dover. James would himself take inspiration from the towering cathedral spires of Canterbury for his story ‘The Stalls of Barchester.’
Mrs Veal and her anonymous writer gave us an ambiguity between fictitious supernatural threat and reality. Offering a chilling backbone to a supernatural story. Something which arguably hadn’t been done in popular supernatural fiction on a similar scale before.
And once she had - supernatural fiction was never the same again.
References
A true relation of the apparition of one Mrs. Veal, the next day after her death: to one Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury. The 8th of September, 1705. 1706. ↩︎
William R.Owens, W.R., Furbank, P.N., Blewett, D., Elmer, P., Mullan, J., Sill, G., and Starr, G.A. Satire, fantasy and writings on the supernatural: the true-born Englishmen and other poems by Daniel Defore. Pickering & Chatto, 2003, p. 3. ↩︎