Alan Brooke Knihy

A groundbreaking account of London’s relationship with death, this book covers the afterlife, execution, bodysnatching, murder, fatal disease, spiritualism, bizarre deaths, and cemeteries. Taking the reader from Roman London to the "glorious dead" of World War I, this is the first systematic look at London’s culture of death, with analysis of its customs and superstitions, rituals and representations. The authors of the celebrated The Executioner’s City weave their way through the streets of London once again, this time combining some of the capital’s most curious features, such as London’s Necropolis Railway and Brookwood Cemetery, with the culture of death exposed in the works of great writers such as Dickens. The book captures for the first time a side of the city that has always been every bit as fascinating and colorful as other better known aspects of the metropolis. It shows London in all its moods—serious, comic, tragic, and heroic—and celebrates its robust acceptance of the only certainty in life.

The authors of London: City of the Dead and London: The Executioners City expand their history of grim, ancient punishments into the realm of the "social" punishments used in workhouses, churches, and schools  All manner of vile punishments from London's long and bloody history are collected here. Over the centuries, many hundreds have expired inside dank, rat-infested cells, or while "dancing the Tyburn jig" at the end of a swinging rope, and many of the sites have become bywords for infamy. From the Tower and Newgate prison to the Clink and the Fleet, this book explores London’s criminal heritage; including the stocks and pillories that lie, almost forgotten, in churchyards and squares across the city, it is a heartbreaking survey of the nation’s penal history. Richly illustrated and filled with victims and villains, nobles, executioners, and torturers, it will delight historians, travelers, and armchair travelers alike.