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I hope you'll enjoy my
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Memento Mori
The Victorians didn't need reminders that everyone eventually dies. Death was an ever-present
feature of daily life. In England before modern medicine, anyone could expire at any moment
from cholera, tuberculosis, or many other diseases that are curable nowadays. Perhaps that's
why the Victorians practiced such elaborate mourning rituals. The relics they left behind serve
as reminders to us that someday we will follow them to the other side.
Having a rather morbid cast of mind, I love those relics. Here are some of my favorites. (A few
crop up in my latest book, A Mortal Likeness.)
Mourning costumes
(This is Queen Victoria's)
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Jet mourning jewelry
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Death masks
(this is Dante Gabriel Rossetti's)
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Brooches made of hair
from the deceased
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Post-mortem photographs
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