Necropolis: London and Its Dead [Paperback]

London and its dead covers the period from Roman times to date, with emphasis on the periods of the Black Death, the Victorian era and the Second World War. Very well written, and the macabra nature of the subject matter is treated sensitively. It is informative and amusing by turn, detailing some of the grisly aspects of death, various cemetery related scandals and lots of good hard factual information. If you have an interest in cemeteries or in London as a city this is a must read book. My only quibble is that there were very few illustrations, and those chosen were not good. Other than that, it's excellent!

Necropolis: London and its Dead is a fascinating study of London's status as centuries-old burial ground, and how the city's relationship to death and its dead has played a pivotal role in its history. It begins with the Neolithic tribal settlements in the area which became the capital, moving onto Roman ritual and burial and then,in the post-Pagan centuries, the vast differences in the treatment of death via Christian belief. Medieval death, plague and the notion of ars moriendi (the art of dying well) are explored, as is the Great Fire of 1665, the population boom of the following two centuries. The crystalisation of Victorian attitudes to grief and mourning naturally take up a great deal of the book, as do the completions of the vast (then) out-of-town cemeteries such as Kensall Green and of course Highgate, after the massive scandals of the Resurrection-Men, mass burials, cholera and the public health horrors of the mid-1800s. Moving on from the nineteenth century, Arnold argues that the intricate and established cult of grief long-held in Victorian London necessarily had to alter after the mass deaths of WWI made intimate mourning and, indeed, graveside reveries, impossible and contrived in the face of rapidly advancing, agnostic modernity.

The amount of material covered in this slim paperback edition is quite staggering, but Arnold makes easy work of the vast subject matter and manages to convey a neat narrative progression throughout. She has an obvious relish for the macabre, but never falls into either of the standard-issue pitfalls when dealing with the subject of death: she neither becomes overly hammy and lighthearted, nor does she descend into the sober depths of elegy. At all times she is even-handed, engaging, critical and honest.

The Victorian period is allotted a considerable amount of space and this book would be of great interest to those interested in Victoriana. Far from revealing an especial prejudice on the part of the author, however, this merely reflects the fact that it was during the nineteenth century that the subject of death was critical from a social, cultural, political and health point of view. Proof that we take many things for granted nowadays, Arnold retells the horrors of Victorian burial: the foul, crammed churchyards, the thefts of bodies, the mass graves where decomposition was often aided with quick-lime and bodies were made to fit their 'snug' abodes via dismemberment, or unscrupulous undertakers jumping up and down upon the corpses...facts both intriguing and harrowing illuminate this book throughout. The Victorian industry of death is also examined: the importance of mourning fashion, of status, of monuments and propriety.

Fascinating throughout, I would recommend this book to anyone with even the mildest curiousity about the subject matter. It is thorough and never exploitative. You will finish reading it, as I did, and feel absolutely certain that London has a unique and sometimes ghastly relationship with its dead. To finish: did you know that part of the London Underground near Kensington veers away from its usual straight course due to the impossibility of drilling through a mass grave of plague dead on that site?...

I did some courses at University on death and mourning rituals and they were fascinating. When I lived in London I also used to spend a fair amount of time visiting Highgate cemetery, also fascinating. Coming across this book seemed like a blessing, dealing with and adding knowledge to areas of interest.

Sadly, I think I know too much. The issue with this book is that it is 'death lite'. I think that it's great as an introduction to the subject, but if you already know things, it's not going to take you any further forward. There is already an excellent paperback book available on underground London the name of which escapes me, but which covers much of the ground Arnold goes over here. The section on Highgate is no more than you would get if you went on one of the excellent tours held by The Friends of Highgate Cemetery. I was most disappointed here, as I was really hoping for something new, rather than the highlights.

I also think the section on Diana is gratuitious and this is going to sound ironic for a book about death, but rather tasteless. Again, nothing you wouldn't know if you had followed the story with any interest at the time, and it strikes me as something the marketing department thought might be good to sell books rather than something Arnold herself had more than a passing interest in.

The bones, ha ha, are here. It just needs fleshing out. This would have been a much more satisfactory book if it had been better researched and about twice as long. As it is, it's just a coffee table book or something you can chat about to Londoners at a dinner party other than the housing market.