Satan's Invisible World Discovered: A Choice Collection of Modern Relations, Proving Evidently, Against the Atheists of This Present Age, That There Are Devils, Spirits Witches, and Apparitions, from Authentic Records, and Attestations of Undoubted Veracity. To Which Is Added, That Marvellous History of Major Weir and Sister, the Witches of Bargarra, Pittenweem, Calder, Etc.

Edinburgh: William Martin NONE [NONE] 1789, 6th edition. (hardcover) [ii], 174, [ii]. Fine, no dust jacket. 16mo. Ex-lib., paper paste down book plate to front fixed endpaper. Contemporay calf leather, somewhat darkened. Gilt title to spine, with raised bands; date stamped to foot of spine. Small tear to front free endpaper. Miniscule worm hole, insignificant, at top of title page of title page. Light foxing and age-toned throughout, neither of which affects the text. First published in 1685, this work describes the 'Devil of Dunluce' poltergeist event, alleged to have frightened the household of one Gilbert Campbell, a weaver, between 1654 and 1655. As the narrative is told, there was a beggar, Alexander Agnew, who had been refused aid by Campbell, and in turn, vowed to bring the family harm. It was then that strange and unusual circumstances presented themselves in the Campbell home; these were said to include the voices of demons, sounds that whistled, stones tossed, and thread cut on the loom. The source of the story was Thomas, a student and the son of of Gilbert Campbell. Later, it was suggested that perhaps young Thomas had created the paranormal activity through duplicitous means. The book was well received, particularly in Scotland, with editions of the full text published in 1709, 1746, 1769, 1779, 1780, 1789, and 1808, in Edinburgh, and in London in 1814. Sterling also published an abbreviated chapbbok selection in 1807, and there were at least 3 chapbooks published in Glasgow between 1830 and 1840. This particular edition is mentioned in Cultures of Witchcraft in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present; Barry J, Davies O, Usborne C, editors. Cham (CH): Palgrave MacMillan (2017). This edition is not found in Ferguson; Sinclair George (d. 1696) in Dictionary of National Biography, London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885-1900; Barry J., News from the Invisible World: the Publishing History of Tales of the Supernatural c. 1660-1832..