Books about death, mortuary science, funeral traditions, and Victorian mourning.
Victorian Book of the Dead
The Victorian Book of the Dead by Chris Woodyard explores historical accounts of exploding corpses, petrified corpse furniture, a man who lived in his wife’s tomb, ghosts, banshees, and other bizarre true tales of Victorian mourning.
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199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die
A hauntingly beautiful travel guide to the world’s most visited cemeteries, told through spectacular photography and their unique histories and residents.
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Understanding Cemetery Symbols
A guide to the meanings behind the symbols found on gravestones.
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Death: A Graveside Companion
Edited by Joanna Ebenstein, Death explores the intersection of art and death through over 1,000 images, many never published before, created throughout the centuries as humanity has struggled to understand and rectify death through morbid beauty.
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Beyond the Dark Veil
Beyond the Dark Veil is a collection of post-mortem and mourning photography from The Thanatos Archive, along with newspaper clippings and other ephemera documenting death and funerals in the Victorian Era.
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Mortician Caitlin Doughty takes you inside the crematorium and pulls back the curtain to demystify death.
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Rest in Pieces
In Rest in Pieces, author Bess Lovejoy tells true stories of grave robbing, missing brains, cadaver brandy, and other misadventures undertaken by the corpses of famous people.
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Stiff
Heavenly Bodies
The Invention of Murder
From Here to Eternity
Death: An Oral History
Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us
Death and the Afterlife
The Empire of Death
Funerals to Die For
Mortuary Confidential
The Strange Case of William Mumler
Confessions of a Funeral Director
The Apparitionists
The story of how spirit photographer William Mumler captured America’s imagination in the wake of the death and tragedy of the Civil War by photographing grieving family members with apparitions of the dearly departed.
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