[1] The pamphlet tells the story of a Canterbury resident, Mrs. Bargrave, who is visited by Mrs. Veal, an old friend and former neighbour who says that she would like to catch up before departing for a journey.

The pair discuss books on death and friendship before Mrs. Veal asks for her friend to write a letter to her brother concerning a number of gifts she would like him to make.

[9] They were taken to be literally "appearances" in which "a spirit may vest it self with Flesh and Blood", as Defoe put it; a form with apparently solid substance but no actual person present.

[11] The Apparition goes to some lengths to convince the reader of its authenticity – as the lengthy title illustrates, specifying names, dates and places and closing with a commentary on the veracity of the "witnesses".

[11] It served a didactic purpose, like other "apparation narratives" of the time, 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.

Their influence was resisted by the authors of apparition narratives, who sought to convince sceptics of the existence of the afterlife and divine providence through accounts of spiritual visitations that presented a detailed and ostensibly authenticated version of the events that they described.

[15] Its narrative content and structure anticipate that of later Gothic literature; authors such as Sheridan Le Fanu and Algernon Blackwood used similar devices to simulate documentary authenticity in their stories.