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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)


Jet mourning jewelry

 
Death masks
(this is Dante Gabriel Rossetti's)

Brooches made of hair
from the deceased

Post-mortem photographs