Without and Within: Victorian Mourning and Treatment of the DeadMain MenuFleeing Death: Victorian Paranoia Concerning Public HealthFirst SectionDying Well and Loved: At the Moment of Death and MourningSecond SectionWearing and Burying Death: Fashion, Mourning, and Public Displays of DeathThird SectionUp and Down the Stair with Burke and Hare: Body-SnatchingFourth SectionWeird Science: Anatomical Use of the DeadFifth SectionWorks Cited/Full-Texts/Further ReadingsKyle Brett425ed005fc457ac8e436783036f285b42b192fb4
The History of Burke and Hare and of the Resurrectionist Times
A lengthy collection, published in 1884, of biographical and local color stories concerning Burke and Hare and the increase of body-snatching scandals in Scotland. Excerpted here are key stories about Burke and Hare's trial, other copy-cat killers, and the public obsession with body-snatching. My focus here is placed on the public spectacle surrounding the trial and execution of Burke--his name then becoming synonymous with the act of body-snatching. Less concerned with the murders, the public unrest seems to be particularly violent against the pair of laborers. The dead, curiously, fall out of view of the general population as seen when the dead are objectified by mourners.