Death in the Victorian Family

• PART 1. DEATH AND DYING ; The Evangelical ideal of the 'Good Death' ; The Revival and Decline of the Good Christian Death ; Bad Deaths, Sudden Deaths, and Suicides ; Death and the Victorian Doctors ; Nurses, Consultants, and Terminal Prognoses ; 'That Little Company of Angels': The Tragedy of Children's Deaths ; Death in Old Age ; In Search of the Good Death: Death in the Gladstone and Lyttelton Families 1835-1915 ; PART II. GRIEF AND MOURNING ; Introduction to Part II ; Funeral Reform and the Cremation Debate ; The Funeral Week ; Widows: Gendered Experiences of Widowhood ; Widowers: Gendered Experiences of Widowhood ; Christian Consolations and Heavenly Reunions ; The Consolations of Memory ; Rituals of Sorrow: Mourning-Dress and Condolence Letters ; Chronic and Abnormal Grief: Queen Victoria, Lady Frederick Cavendish, and Emma Haden ; 'A Solitude beyond the Reach of God or Man': Victorian Agnostics and Death ; Epilogue. After the Victorians: Social Memory, Spiritualism, and the Great War ; Notes ; Location of Manuscript Collections ; Index

This is a fascinating book, considering a very interesting topic at what ... is the period of our history which it finds its most enlightening form. Its strength lies in its detail and the picture of individual lives that it creates. This is a welcome addition to the history of the period.