Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal FearReaders of Edgar Allan Poe's tales--just think of The Premature Burial--may comfort themselves with the notion that Poe must have exaggerated: surely people of the 1800s could not have been at risk of being buried alive? But such stories filled medical journals as well as fiction, and fear in the populace was high. It was speculated, from the number of skeletons found in horrific, contorted positions inside their coffins, that ten out of every one hundred people were buried before they were dead. With over fifty illustrations, Buried Alive explores the medicine, folklore, history, and literature of Europe and the United States to uncover why such fears arose and whether they were warranted. "A weird and wonderful little tome."--Salon.com "Bondeson weaves a strange disturbing, and weirdly enthralling tale. Cremation never sounded so good."--Lingua Franca "A most useful and entertaining book....Deserves a place on every bedside table in America."--Patrick McGrath, author of Martha Peake: A Novel of the Revolution |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American Anatomist anti-premature-burial antivaccinationist Apostelkirche apparent death awakening bell body Bouchut Bruhier Bruhier's book burial reform buried alive cadaver Careless Anatomist cemetery century Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland churchyard claimed coffin lid Cologne corpse beds corpse's death and premature death trance declared dead died Dissertation doctor eighteenth-century exhumed fear of premature France Franz Hartmann French funeral German grave heard heartbeat hospital Hufeland invented Jacques-Bénigne Winslow Johann Peter Frank Josat Journal Karnice l'incertitude des signes Lady later Lecherous Monk legend Leichenhaus Literary Premature Burials living London Louis Maureen Jones medical profession mort apparente Munich newspaper opened pamphlet patient person physician Physiologists and Raving Poe's premature burial premature interment presumed corpse published putrefaction quoted Raving Spiritualists reports resuscitation revived Ring Scheintod security coffin shroud signs of death Skeptical Physiologists story Taberger tale taphophobia tion tomb tube ture burial Vesalius waiting mortuaries wife William Tebb woman writer wrote young
Popular passages
Page 16 - I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood ; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres; Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine : But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood : — List, list, O list!
Page 9 - Worm — these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed — that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead...