Chris WoodyardThe Victorian Book of the Dead

I was expecting this to be an informational chapter book on Victorian mourning practices….and that is what the book is…but rather than the author interpreting historical facts, it’s excerpts of actual historical documents (usually newspapers) to explain the Victorian belief system in their own words. Not seeing this form of writing before, I actually shelved the book for over a year. The other day I came across my copy and decided to give it another shot. I’m so glad I did! I couldn’t put it down! The excerpts clearly illustrates the chapter topics and are excellently cited. I ended up liking the book so much that I looked up and ordered another book by the author. I highly recommend!

Book has historical accounts and interviews of all morbid and strange interests!must have for a morbid/ victorian lover!

I am still reading and am finding out more and more information about the way the dead was thought of and taken care of, very educational, historical and in some cases funny, recommended for those who just enjoy learning about the past

I am a lover of oddity and history so I had to read this. I was not disappointed! There is so much information and presented in such an entertaining way that I could not put it down until I finished it. I had to follow my husband around, reading bits of it too him.It is a history of the way we look at death in the past and till now. How we went from just ground burial, to the ultra expensive, lined with silk caskets of today, and the events leading to the way we mourn our loved ones today. There are fascinating true tales of cemetery caretakers and their terrifying experiences with strange events in the dead of night, of Irish wakes and the long wait to make sure the dead were REALLY dead in the past when doctors could not always be sure. The strange and morbid customs of the past give a wonderful insight into how our ancestors had to live with the possibility of death and its impact on a daily basis. Today, everything to do with the dead is sanitized. In the fairly recent past, it was much more a part of life, in all its gritty (and often disturbing) reality. Stories of how fathers would open the casket of a loved child every year(!!!??) to look upon their disintegrating features and then rebury them is beyond belief today. And yet it was considered fairly normal a hundred or so years ago. This is the perfect gift for any goth or strange history buff. I know it sounds disgusting, but I actually loved learning something about a part of history I had never considered before.

This is a very interesting, very detailed book. My only complaint is it is far less interestingly written than the back cover. So you'll get a lot out of it, but until you're into it, it'll be a touch sloggy.

The author says in the introduction that this is not an encyclopedia, but it covers so much about the popular culture of Victorian death and mourning! There are ghost stories, gruesome stories of things that went wrong at funerals, wakes, and burials (like exploding corpses!), weird stories about banshees, premonitions of death, and Death Angels, and completely mad tales about people who kept bodies in their parlors or lived in the tomb with their loved one. I collect post-mortem photographs so I was interested in the interviews with several Victorian photographers about why people took these photos and some of the difficulties. I also learned how to renovate crape widow’s veils, techniques used to detect life in a patient so he wouldn’t get buried alive, and about the “lost art of the crape threat,” where people would tie crape to a door as a threat or a nasty practical joke, sometimes with dire consequences. There is also a chapter about the New York City Morgue and burials at the Potter’s Field on Hart’s Island. Reading about burials at the Potter’s Field today, it sounds like nothing has changed at all. One of my favorite chapters was on strange deaths—who knew you could die from lizards? Or be murdered by a pet parrot? But just as good was the last chapter, full of heartbreaking stories of loss and sorrow—you’ll probably need a box of tissues.This is a truly entertaining book and there is much here that you probably have not seen before, even if you’re a Victorian history buff or interested in the history of mourning practices. The author has dug up some unique, dark, and strange stories of Victorian death and mourning!

I love history and it is always nice to read something that I have not heard before. Always good to follow up with your own reseach. Overall I enjoyed reading this book.

If you're interested in the Victorian Era I think you'll like this book . . It covers just about anything you'll need to know about this subject ( it even has some Darwin Award winners ) . Admittedly I haven't finished it yet but it had me hooked as soon as I started reading it .

Not quite what l expected but an interesting read. Most things relate to the united states and events that occured there.

Really interesting and full of facts. A great insight into the Victiorians way of "life".i would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in burials.

Aunque la edición es en sí económica, el contenido vale muchísimo la pena, me enganchó desde el principio, además es una increíble forma de acercarse a la época Victoriana desde una perspectiva peculiar.

Interesting time in history