Mourning Customs and History

Corpse Collectors: Stories of the bereaved who cannot bury the corpses of their loved ones.

In a Munich Dead-House an 1890s visitor finds grim and grewsome sites, as well as German order and efficiency.

Weekend Compendium: 13 January 2016 Valentine Edition Featuring an 18th century “Missed Connection” ad, 19th century hints for photographic sitters. The Angel of Lourdes, monkey ghosts, Valentines for Undertakers and Spiritualist Mediums.

Weekend Compendium: 6 January 2016: The Ladies’ Man, A Fluttering in the Vault, A Woodsy Costume (barking), Begotten by a Ghost, Hairdressing for the Dead.

Weekend Compendium: 16 January 2016

A frigid visit to the morgue at the Great St Bernard Hospice in the Pennine Alps.

The Last Word: Coffin-Plate Capers Stories of Victorian and Edwardian coffin-plates as ornament, family record, protest, and omen.

A past Bishop of Liberia gives us an eye-witness account of a restless corpse determined to find her murderer.

A Few Uses for a Dead Tombstone Recently there have been news stories about the inappropriate use of old tombstones. This is scarcely a new problem, as we look at 19th and early 20th-century stories of “A Few Uses for a Dead Tombstone”