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Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and welcome welcome to Not Just the Tudors from History Hit,

the podcasts in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs,

from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to Samarise,

relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft.

Not in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

In a crowded London Street in 1762, a ghost began to speak.

Not in words exactly, but in knocks, sharp, deliberate, and terrifyingly precise. Within days, the small house in Cock Lane Smithfield was filled

with clergymen, skeptics and the simply curious, all straining to hear messages they believe to be communications

from the restless spirit of a murdered woman, Fanny Lines.

It was a spectacle that, perhaps surprisingly,

gripped London in the time of the Enlightenment.

Because this was an age we often associate with reason, science and progress.

But it was also one that was equally captivated by hoaxes, impostors and elaborate deceptions.

In this episode, I'm delighted to say that we're joined by our friend Madeline Pelling,

co-host of our sister History Hit podcast After Dark.

In her new book, Hoax, Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment,

...