Tonight, we join William Faulkner on a trip back to the fictional town of Jefferson, Mississippi.

“The Apparition of Mrs. Veal” is the most famous example of a well-established genre at the time, that of the “apparition narrative,” which flourished in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and which developed in response to a crisis in religious belief that had been provoked by the works of Thomas Hobbes and the emergence of modern materialist philosophies.

This evening’s author, Frederick George Loring, was an English naval officer and writer, and an early expert in wireless telegraphy.

We introduce our new podcast with a very special ghost story, this one by a Mr. Dickens, whom we all know as one of the most prolific and beloved authors of the 19th century.

It’s always a little disconcerting when inanimate objects become, of themselves, animate.