Recommended Reading
| London's Cemeteries by Darren Beach |
| Highgate Cemetery: Victorian Valhalla by John Gay The real raison d'être of this book is John Gay's beautiful photography. These pictures are doubly unique in that some of the monuments shown here have crumbled through the actions of nature or vandals, and that he has had unprecedented access to the site: try snapping shots like these from the back of a one hour guided tour! |
| Vigor Mortis by Kate Berridge From the rise of the Victorian rituals celebrating death, through the burial of death beneath sex in the sixties, to the new fin de siècle "pornography of death", this is an intriguing and encyclopaedic look at the way 'our' (the western world's) view of death has changed throughout the twentieth century. |
| The Victorian Celebration of Death by James Stephens Curl It is almost impossible to imagine how this book could have been improved upon; for anyone in any way interested in the attitude of the British to our dead, and in the development of British cemeteries, this has to be the definative work. |
| Cemetery Stories by Katherine Ramsland "Admit it:" says the blurb on the back, "you're fascinated by cemeteries." And I am. This is a book for true obsessives, as Ramsland has collected an enormous number of anecdotes from those involved with the death business. |
| The London Way of Death by Brian Parsons As this is the book I'm going to write myself (one of them), I was hoping Mr Parsons hadn't done too good a job here, and happily, I wasn't disappointed. |
| The Victorian Undertaker by Trevor May At only 32 pages, this little book is going to be in great danger of getting lost on my shelves. Nevertheless, it's packed with information; six sections cover the Victorians' attitude to death, hearses, mourning rituals, the funeral feast, burial and state funerals, all accompanied by lavish (if always black and white) illustration, mainly from contemporary newspaper illustrations and tradesmen's circulars. It's excellent value for money, and if you're in the slightest bit interested in funeral customs, it's a must have. |
| Permanent Londoners by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall Subtitled An Illustrated Biographical Guide to the Cemeteries of London, in fact this book is a guide to some of the more spectacular burial and memorial sites in London. Westminster Abbey is covered in four separate chapters, grouped according to the life and works of the subjects. St. Pauls', Windsor Castle and the Tower too have their own chapters, as do the parish churches of St. John at Hampstead and St. Nicholas, Chiswick. The cemeteries covered are Highgate, Kensal Green, Brompton, Bunhill Fields, Hampstead, Putney Vale, Golders Green and St Marylebone: certainly amongst the more interesting burial grounds, and the most visited. |
| London Cemeteries by Hugh Meller Giving me this book is not dissimilar to giving a small child a guide to London's sweet-shops: this is the book that is guiding me around the 103 cemeteries in London. |
| When We Die by Cedric Mims
Death is the great taboo for our society, which is surprising, considering how fascinating so many people seem to find it. In his preface, Mims writes: |