Category: death lit

  • In a Dark Wood

    How They Met Themselves, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, British, 1828-1882

    “Rossetti’s drawing How They Met Themselves was a doppelganger image of a young couple meeting their ghostly doubles in a dense wood. Its first version was completed during his honeymoon in 1860 and it was reworked as a coloured version in 1864. Writing of what Dante Rossetti called his ‘bogie picture’, William said: ‘To meet one’s wraith is ominous of death, and to figure Lizzie as meeting her wraith might well have struck her bridegroom as uncanny in a high degree. In less than two years the weird was woefully fulfilled’ (Dante Gabriel Rossetti: his family letters I: 207).”

    From The Victorian Web: The Séance Diary of William Michael Rossetti

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  • Death Lit: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

    I am a big fan of the YouTube channel Ask a Mortician by Cailtin Doughty. I especially love the videos on historical corpses. In all of her videos, Doughty not only provides tons of interesting information but shares it in a clear and direct style with a touch of humor. I could say the same about her writing. I was excited to pick up a copy of her first book, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. At no point was the book morbid despite being about dying, death rites, the funeral industry and corpses. I found it informing and a pleasure to read.

    I highly recommend it, particularly because I think it would be accessible to a wide range of reading skills. The style was straight-forward and easy to read, and the content never failed to keep me informed and entertained.

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