Beyond the Veil

The Victorian Obsession With Death and Mourning

Paul Gambino

• Publisher: Frances Lincoln
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781836004226
• eBook ISBN: 9781836004233
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: Social Sciences

Beyond the Veil is a visual tour through the curious history of how we deal with death—the grief and mourning, the funerals, symbols, and ceremonies.  
 
From Victorian England across to the US, learn about the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialize the dead. 
 
Humans have always had ways of marking death, but in Victorian England death became a morbid obsession that went global—death was as much ‘celebrated’ as it was a source of fear and sadness. Queen Victoria herself became a figurehead of grief after the death of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861. Her ensuing fascination with death took many visual forms—from her ritualized embrace of black clothing to the building of ostentatious monuments—and massively influenced cultural norms in both the UK and further afield. 

The Victorians built complex cemeteries, collected precious memento mori, commissioned bizarre death portraits, and obsessed over the correct mourning attire and funerary protocol, while turn-of-the century America saw reflections of many of these cultural phenomena. The bestsellers of the period were often about life and death (think Frankenstein and Dracula), while the art, architecture, and style—with its often dark and heavy gothic overtones—revelled in the glamorization of death. Beyond the Veil brings this extraordinarily elaborate and stylised visual culture together while expertly explaining and elaborating on its most peculiar and fascinating aspects. 

For example, it explores: 

• The influence of Queen Victoria’s personal mourning on fashion and social custom.
• The rise of Victorian cemeteries and funerary architecture. 
• The art of memento mori and post-mortem photography. 
• The emergence of spiritualism, seances and afterlife communication. 
• The fascination with gothic literature, symbolism and the romanticization of death. 

Beautifully illustrated throughout with archival photography, artworks and design,Beyond the Veil is a must-have for lovers of history, art, and the macabre. It invites readers to step into the shadows of the past and discover how Victorian mourning shaped our modern relationship with grief and remembrance.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• I. Thrones & Bones: The Grief that Governs
• II. In the Shadow of the Scythe: Life and Death in the Victorian Era
• III. Mourning Couture: Dying’s Influence over Fashion
• IV. Brushes with Mortality: Victorian Art in the Shadow of Death
• V. City of the Dead: Family Plots to the Necropolis
• VI. Crossing Over: Communicating with the Great Beyond
• VII. The Dark Arts: A Dance with Death in Literature and Culture
• VIII. A Memento Mori: Keepsakes of the Dead
• IX. The House of Shadows: From Home to Funeral Home
• X. Shooting the Dead: A Final Focus
• XI. Toil and Tragedy: Working Yourself to Death
• XII. Twin Shadows: The Butcher and the Bunco Artist
• XIII. The Queen’s Last Breath: A Monarch’s Farewell
• Endnotes
• Picture Credits
• Index
• Acknowledgements
• About the Author
• Copyright