Customer Reviews

Necropolis: London and Its Dead

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A well researched presentation of burial rites in the city London since earliest known times to the very present, including medieval London facing the same problem that Catholic cities everywhere faced with the desire to preserve the body for Judgment Day and to bury the corpse in a churchyard, coupled with practically no common sense about health and hygiene, struggling to find room for the dead in the land of the living.
An interesting book without being too ghoulish or gory; there are plenty of anecdotes. One wishes that, instead of just giving the bare bones of some stories, the author had spent a little more time fleshing them out, such as she did with the affect of massive deaths in the World Wars and from the plaque. There is a very well done section on Victorian funeral attitudes and the creation of the undertaking business, including how attitudes on grief had changed coming up to the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.
More drawings, lithos or photos would have been interesting.
Written by a Brit for Brits, there are some references to figures of the past that may be unknown to the American reader, but nothing that bogs the presentation.

A simply wonderful book! A somewhat easy read (would more likely be easier for UK readers, but I am from the USA) with many well known names. I find it to be thrilling for those new in the subject, and those who have some knowledge already, simply because of the multitude of subjects breached. As an anthropological student, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in London and just what lies beneath it's soil.

I first came across Arnold's Necropolis while conducting research for a graduate paper on Chaucer's treatment of corpses in The Canterbury Tales in 2007. At first glance the book seemed intriguing and promising, and I ended up using some of Arnold's early descriptions to help establish the evolution of British corpse-treatment before Chaucer's time. However, I did not get a chance to read the entire book until now.

Necropolis: London and Its Dead is entertaining, and will surely keep the interest of literary and cemetery enthusiasts alike. Far from a scholarly text, Arnold's collective history seems to be aimed at a larger public, and she does her best to assume very little of her audience. However, this seems to lead to a tendency to ramble and go off on tangents; several times in a single chapter Arnold will stray away from the subject at hand (funeral practices, establishing cemeteries, etc) in order to elaborate on the details of an individual's life. Sometimes this information can be very interesting, and at others I found myself wondering why the identity of someone's teenage lover is important to the context of their burial, when Arnold herself makes no attempt to connect the two subjects. Such wandering thoughts are what keep Necropolis from being "excellent", and ground her in the realm of popular reading as opposed to academic publishing.

That all being said, Necropolis is a fascinating read, and one that gives the reader not only interesting tidbits to take away, but a sense of life and cultural throughout the development of London society.

A very interesting detailed book encompassing death in the 1600's to present time. It also gives a history of the cemetery and how it is observed today. I enjoyed the detail and research that went into creating this book plus the bibliography will give you many more selections to chose from. The cemetery represents more than just a burial place for my family but also a place to walk, to reflect on life, and to learn about the history of families.
W. Sorrell

I'm no historian so when I read history I have to take what I read on trust. So when the author of this book claims that the nursery rhyme "Ring o' Ring o' Roses" dates back to the Black Death, I lose that trust. How can someone write an entire book on a historical subject and be unaware of the standard example from Historical Urban Myth 101?

And specifically reviewing the Kindle version: yet another book where the publishers just want to churn out shoddy work to make a quick book. Instead of pictures we are treated to bold "Image not available" regularly punctuating the text. And the formatting is lousy as usual. For example quotations aren't indicated by indentation so they look, confusingly, like the main body of text.

Still, it's an interesting subject and I'll do some fact checking if I ever need to use the information in it.

I found this to be a really interesting book. Not knowing much about London cemeteries, I came away from this book feeling much more informed about them. Not only did I learn about the cemeteries and funeral customs, I also learn some new history I was previously unware of. I think the author did a very thorough job in her research and the book itself is well written. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend this book to anyone not only interested in cemeteries, but in the history of London. Would have liked some photographs, but I don't feel the lack thereof in anyway detracts from this book.

I wasn't expecting an awful lot when I picked this book up. As a result of some research on American mourning customs and memento mori that I did as a graduate student, I have some claim to geekery around the history of death. Just from the size of the book and the way that it was marketed, I expected this to be a light history with a focus on the London graveyards. I had hoped, perhaps, for some new anecdotes to add to my cocktail party arsenal.

I got more or less what I expected. Unfortunately, I already knew enough about the subject that there weren't very many new anecdotes. Even more unfortunately, I knew enough to find Arnold a bit... I'm not sure-- either gullible or disingenuous come to mind. She repeats "facts" about the life of the people living in the periods that she covers that I am inclined to believe are no such thing. To be fair, Arnold is not a historian and also does not claim to be one. She is a well-read enthusiast and, I think, a psychologist. For that, and if you don't expect too much, then she doesn't do a bad job.

I also had to quarrel with the structure of the book. Arnold evidently found not enough material in her chosen subject to execute a proper book. Instead of sticking to the cemeteries, the narration wanders off into a variety of semi-related topics. Lives of famous dead people buried in London, the Blitz, the Death of Diana. This is too bad, and annoyed me even when I was learning things.

As I said, if you are interested in the kind of history book which is about anecdote rather than a theme, then this should be a good enough read. I can imagine that it would be good as a ghoulish airplane book, or for someone with a basic interest in the subject at hand. Arnold does provide a useful reference list for further reading.