“MATCHLESS SUFFERINGS”: INTIMATE VIOLENCE IN THE EARLY MODERN APPARITION NARRATIVES OF DANIEL DEFOE AND ELIZABETH BOYD

Abstract

This article compares Daniel Defoe's “A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day after her Death” (1706) and London commercial writer Elizabeth Boyd's ballads “William and Catherine, or the Fair Spectre: A Tale” (1745) and “Altamira's Ghost; or, Justice Triumphant” (1744), which depict female ghosts who appear to chastise unkind men and extract justice from family members. It argues that apparition narratives challenge the scrutiny of private female transgression in legal and journalistic contexts, and allow reading audiences to conceive of intimate violations, including battery and marital rape, as occurring in middling and privileged households. This literary trope was briefly entertained but is notable, as scholars believe that by the early eighteenth century women's experiences of domestic violence had become an unutterable topic.