‘Original Memoirs of Apparitions &amp; Spirits in Wales’ ( <i>c</i> .1738): Publishing on the Supernatural in the Long Eighteenth Century

The folkloric anecdotes collated by the Rev. Edmund Jones (1702–93) constitute our richest surviving source material on supernatural beliefs in eighteenth-century Wales. Published in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, Jones’s writings appear to be temporally distant from their nearest intellectual antecedents: the ‘anti-Sadducee’ works of the late seventeenth century. This article discusses a previously overlooked manuscript on apparitions compiled by Jones in the 1730s. Analysing this manuscript offers insight into how Jones adapted his material for print, and helps to bridge the temporal gap between Jones’s published works and their scholarly forerunners. It also enables fresh reflection on how attitudes to professing and publishing supernatural beliefs changed over the course of the eighteenth century.