"This book is a 300-year social history of Protestant communication with the dead in early America (to the mid-nineteenth century); the people in the book are a wide variety of people. This book is also a history of women in religion"-- Provided by publisher.

Introduction. Speaking with the dead -- The transatlantic science of the dead -- Elegy in Puritan New England -- Talking gravestones and visions of heaven -- Voices of the dead in the American enlightenment -- Eighteenth-century imaginative literature -- Revelations and new denominations -- Religious objects, sacred space, and the cult of the dead -- Ghosts, guardian angels, and departed spirits -- Conclusion. Continuing relationships.