The Cock Lane Ghost.
[n.d., c.1762.]
Etching. Sheet 90 x 150mm (3½ x 6"). With three wood engravings and seven 18th century newspaper clippings on the same subject. Trimmed to printed border, laid down and mounted over, laid on album paper.
Rare item. A man enters a room to be confronted by a ghostly woman. 'The Cock Lane Ghost' seemed to haunt William Kent, a usurer from Norfolk who, after his wife Elizabeth had died in childbirth, had taken up with his sister-in-law, Fanny. They moved to London as man and wife, and took lodgings in Cock Lane, in the house of Richard Parsons, a parish clerk. Kent loaned Parsons 12 guineas, to be repaid at a rate of a guinea per month. Then strange noises started to be heard in the house, after which a visitor reported seeing a ghostly white figure ascend the stairs. After a lull Fanny died of smallpox and the knockings resumed. With John Moore, rector of St Bartholomew-the-Great in West Smithfield, Parsons devised a method of communication with the spirit: one knock for yes, two knocks for no. The spirit suggested that the ghost that had scared the vistor was Elizabeth and the latest was Fanny, both of whom had been poisoned by William Kent. Thus Kent fell under public suspicion as a murderer but, protesting his innocence, allowed séances to be held, one attended by Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, 30th January 1762. Eventually a committee (including Samuel Johnson) declared the haunting a hoax, stating the knockings were caused by Parsons' daughter Elizabeth. They were sentenced in 1763.
[Ref: 61758] £230.00
Etching. Sheet 90 x 150mm (3½ x 6"). With three wood engravings and seven 18th century newspaper clippings on the same subject. Trimmed to printed border, laid down and mounted over, laid on album paper.
Rare item. A man enters a room to be confronted by a ghostly woman. 'The Cock Lane Ghost' seemed to haunt William Kent, a usurer from Norfolk who, after his wife Elizabeth had died in childbirth, had taken up with his sister-in-law, Fanny. They moved to London as man and wife, and took lodgings in Cock Lane, in the house of Richard Parsons, a parish clerk. Kent loaned Parsons 12 guineas, to be repaid at a rate of a guinea per month. Then strange noises started to be heard in the house, after which a visitor reported seeing a ghostly white figure ascend the stairs. After a lull Fanny died of smallpox and the knockings resumed. With John Moore, rector of St Bartholomew-the-Great in West Smithfield, Parsons devised a method of communication with the spirit: one knock for yes, two knocks for no. The spirit suggested that the ghost that had scared the vistor was Elizabeth and the latest was Fanny, both of whom had been poisoned by William Kent. Thus Kent fell under public suspicion as a murderer but, protesting his innocence, allowed séances to be held, one attended by Prince Edward, Duke of York and Albany, 30th January 1762. Eventually a committee (including Samuel Johnson) declared the haunting a hoax, stating the knockings were caused by Parsons' daughter Elizabeth. They were sentenced in 1763.
[Ref: 61758] £230.00