Death And The Victorians by Adrian Mackinder is a well written book on the practices of burying their dead during the Victorian age. This book is so good from how they started cremating their dead to having better burying practices from what they did with their deceased battle victims to strange displays of dead bodies to the incredulous thing some did with others dead loved ones. She even talks about the building of popular cemeteries. This is a great book and one I found very interesting and highly entertaining there’s way too much stuff in this book for me to put in my review but I do want to say before ending this review that I love the way this author writes you can tell she loves the subject she is riding a bow but does not give weight to big emotions and or generalizations but writes the information that’s factual as she gets it she also states in the book that she wrote this during a busy life with two children and a full-time job and if this is what she writes when her tank is running solo I cannot wait to see what she writes in the future. Her first book was about Stanley from marble which I am definitely going to read I do believe this is my year for great authors because I have found a few where are usually at this time only one or two would be notable I now have a list of nine authors that I follow and would buy anything they write and this author Adrian Mackinder is now one of them needless to say this is the book I highly recommend I want to thank pin and sword history and net galley for my free Ark copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

This review was made possible via an ARC through NetGalley.

Death and the Victorians by Adrian Mackinder is a nonfiction book around Victorian attitudes around death and connecting the threads to previous beliefs and modern practices. The cremation aspect was quite interesting and I am now interested in doing my own research into the topic.

The necropolises of Great Britain were new information for me as was when reincarnation was introduced to England and by who and I enjoyed the connections made between ectoplasm in Ghostbusters and Victorian spirituality.

I was originally concerned that the book would dismiss the victims of Jack the Ripper due to the wording of the summary, but Mackinder names all five of the Canonical Five, explicitly states that they deserve more attention, and directs readers who want to give the spotlight to those women to read The Five by Hallie Rubenhold.

I would recommend this to those doing research on the Victorian era, spirituality in England, and the White Chapel murders. I would not recommend this to those who have little interest in nonfiction or want nonfiction presented without author asides.

Hundreds of years ago, at university, I did a course on Death and Mourning in Victorian Literature. I've been obsessed ever since. Give me an opportunity to talk about the overcrowding of graveyards in Victorian London and I'm there for twenty minutes minimum. This tapped right into my interests. I enjoyed the book. I think it's a great book for people who are starting to get interested in the subject. It struck the right note between scholarly and telling a great story. I would have liked to have seen a chapter on mourning rituals, which were so interesting in the way they kept women trapped in an ever increasing and complex ritual of behaviours that trapped her as much as the ideals of what a home maker should be. But for a short volume that covers many of the main points that created a fascinating time in human history, it's a great read.

This book is insanely entertaining, informative and well researched. I’ve always felt a strange fascination with Victorian times, so this read was like a time machine that allowed me to look at the people who lived those lives. The author makes a good case for the way Victoriana has influenced us through the years, including our views on life and death, our fascination with the supernatural and even the true crime podcasts that started only recently. Despite being centered on Victorian England, there is information about France and the US, including how views on the same subjects were similar and how they differed. I especially enjoyed the parts about literature and how it influenced media reports. Three of the books mentioned here: Dracula, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Portrait of Dorian Grey are favorites, so it was fascinating to see how the coverage of the Jack the Ripper murders was shaped by them. The author also answered my question about how intelligent people could have fallen for obvious frauds trying to speak to the dead. I truly enjoyed this.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Pen & Sword History.

Quite fascinating about the perception of death in Victorian times – a time where death was more present for a majority than it (luckily) is today. Although it is a short book it covers many different views on death and the dead during this time period. It’s clearly visible that Mackinder has done his research.

Death and the Victorians is a fascinating read that covers a vast array of topics relating to views of death and the afterlife from the early 1800s to World War I. The writing style is conversational which makes is an easy and quick read. The title is a bit misleading in that there is much that goes beyond the UK, like discussions of the Catacombs in Paris and a number of sections about the US. I particularly liked the discussions of literature: gothic tales, ghost stories and the rise of the penny dreadfuls. My only criticism is that the overall organization of the material didn't seem clear, more a series of essays. However, that is a minor detail. If you are like me, and have a slight morbid fascination with death and the macabre, you will really enjoy this!
I will definitely recommend this title to readers who enjoy reading about the Victorian Era, a fascinating time in history and death, always a compelling topic!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This was an informative read, it was great to read more about the concept of death in general but also to learn more about the specific Victorian era regarding death was fascinating