The Victorian Celebration of Death
Summary
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The Victorian Celebration of Death by James Stevens Curl
In this beautifully illustrated and well-researched book Professor Curl has rescued much fascinating material from undeserved oblivion, and his work fills a genuine gap. From humble working-class exequies to the massive outpouringof grief at the State funerals of Wellington and Queen Victoria herself, The Victorian Celebration of Death covers an immense canvas. It describes the change in sensibility that led to a new tenderness towards the dead; the history of the urban cemeteries with their architecture and landscapes; the ephemera of death and dying; State funerals as national spectacles; and the utilitarian reactions towards the end of the nineteenth century. Combining wit with compassion, Curl wears his learning lightly, and his taste for the eerie is delicately balanced by this literary personality. He has resurrected many valuable and extremely interesting aspects of nineteenth-century attidues to death and the disposal of the dead; Curl's achievement is as well-ordered as any sumptuous funeral, and is lucid as well as entertaining, with many surprises and assiciated delights. He proceeds from the elegiac garden to the Elysian fields of the ideal cemetery, and then on to crem
Professor James Stevens Curl is Senior Research Fellow at The Queen's University of Belfast. He read for his Doctorate at University College London, and was Visiting Fellow at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge. He has established an international reputation for scholarship and lucidity of style. He has published many works dealing with aspects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780750938730 |
| ISBN 10 | 0750938730 |
| Title | The Victorian Celebration of Death |
| Author | James Stevens Curl |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | The History Press Ltd |
| Year published | 2004-09-01 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |