Research source

I am still near, Watching the smiles I prized on earth, Your converse mild, your blameless mirth.[64

Date of account: Late nineteenth-century compilation
Source: The Ghost World
Reference: The Ghost World · selected passage 203
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Daniel de Foe, in his 'Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions,' has given many minute details as to the dress of a ghost

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Daniel de Foe, in his 'Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions,' has given many minute details as to the dress of a ghost. He tells a laughable and highly amusing story of some robbers who broke into a mansion in the country, and, whilst ransacking one of the rooms, they saw, in a chair, 'a grave, ancient man, with a long full-bottomed wig, and a rich brocaded gown,' &c. One of the robbers threatened to tear off his 'rich brocaded gown'; another hit at him with a firelock, and was alarmed at seeing it pass through the air; and then the old man 'changed into the most horrible monster that ever was seen, with eyes like two fiery daggers red hot.' The same apparition encountered them in different rooms, and at last the servants, who were at the top of the house, throwing some 'hand grenades' down the chimneys of these rooms, the thieves were dispersed.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

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