Paul Gambino

The visual history of how we deal with death – the grief and mourning, the funerals, symbols and ceremonies – is fascinatingly rich. Focusing on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and travelling from Victorian England across to the US, Beyond the Veil is a visual tour through this curious world, charting the often peculiar and at times macabre ways of how the living memorialise the dead.Humans have always had ways of marking death, but in Victorian England death became a morbid obsession that went global – death was as much ‘celebrated’ as it was a source of fear and sadness. Queen Victoria herself became a figurehead of grief after the death of her beloved Prince Albert in 1861. Her ensuing fascination with death took many visual forms – from her ritualised embrace of black clothing to the building of ostentatious monuments – and massively influenced cultural norms in both the UK and further afield.The Victorians built complex cemeteries, collected precious memento mori, commissioned bizarre death portraits and obsessed over the correct mourning attire and funerary protocol, while turn-of-the century America saw reflections of many of these cultural phenomena. The bestsellers of the period were often about life and death (think Frankenstein and Dracula), while the art, architecture and style – with its often dark and heavy gothic overtones – revelled in the glamorisation of death. Beyond the Veil brings this extraordinarily elaborate and stylised visual culture together while expertly explaining and elaborating on its most peculiar and fascinating aspects.

From a spirit-haunted church in Western Ohio to an ancient Italian castle, from a freakish funhouse on the Jersey shore to a Connecticut cottage with a storybook façade that belies its spine-tingling contents: this collection of aspirational interiors will appeal to anyone who wishes to live in the luxury of Gothic darkness without sacrificing even an ounce of style. The Art of Gothic Living profiles 15 homes and their owners, chronicling their journeys to creating living spaces that reflect a philosophy steeped in the tenets of Gothic subculture—individuality, creativity, and a fascination with life's shadow side. The ways in which this manifests in bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and living rooms is as diverse as the homeowners in author Paul Gambino's intriguing book. How does one showcase a collection of medical models and religious iconography in a way that emphasizes its beauty (and allows space for entertaining)? How can a homeowner make the ghosts that linger in the halls a feature, not a bug? This engaging, beautifully designed treasure trove of dark delights answers plenty of the most practical questions while inspiring readers to new heights of decorative expression as they envision a Gothic home for themselves, wherever they may reside.

A fascinating insight into the strange world of collectors of the macabre, Morbid Curiosities features 17 unique collections and an extensive interview with each collector, explaining how and why they collect, and showcasing the most remarkable pieces from each collection. The collections include skulls, mummified body parts, occult objects and various carnival, side-show and criminal ephemera. Detailed captions tell the curious stories behind each object, many of which are being shown outside the private world of their collections for the first time.