BOND, William. ~ The Supernatural Philosopher: or, the Mysteries of Magick,... All exemplified in the History of the Life and surprizing Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell, a Scots gentleman; who, though deaf and dumb, writes down any Stranger’s Name at first Sight, with their future Contingencies of Fortune... The Second Edition. London: for E. Curll, 1728.
8vo (194 × 120 mm), pp. ix, [5], 33, 320, [1], plus 16 pages of Curll’s adverts. Engraved frontispiece and 3 engraved plates. Contemporary sprinkled calf, spine with 5 raised bands, label renewed to style. Rubbed, joints starting, head of spine chipped and mostly absent, traces of an old armorial bookplate removed. A very good copy.
The Supernatural Philosopher is a reissue of The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell (1720) with the addition of ‘Verses to Mr. Campbell. On the History of his Life and Adventures’ and ‘A remarkable passage of an apparition. 1665’.
The author evidently lodged for a while in the same London house as the Scots-born soothsayer Duncan Campbell (d. 1730), who was a well-known figure in the city. Deaf and mute, he was probably educated at Glasgow using the finger system devised by John Wallis in the seventeenth century. The History of the Life was persistently attributed until relatively recently to Defoe even though it was reissued here under Bond’s name.