Chris Woodyard
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chriswoodyard.bsky.social
Chris Woodyard
@chriswoodyard.bsky.social
1.9K followers 210 following 1.7K posts
Author A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, The Victorian Book of the Dead, 10 books on ghosts in Ohio and elsewhere. Death, mourning, costume, ghosts, Forteana. Podcast: Boggart and Banshee https://thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com: Blog
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chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Whitby jet faceted bead bracelet and a similar bracelet worn by the woman in the early 1880s photograph.
Faceted black oval bracelet as worn Woman in a long, buttoned coat in a hat trimmed with a rosette, wearing a mourning bracelet, standing by a table with gothic arches and a floral arrangement.
November 23, 2025 at 12:50 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead La Mode Jolie. Fashion plate showing a very fashionable widow accompanied by a friend in a sympathetic grey costume, as the widow, with a look of satisfaction, places a wreath on the grave railing. c. 1895-1895
libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/coll...
Fashion plate showing a very fashionable widow in black with ruffled sleeves and skirt trim, accompanied by a friend in a grey dress with capelet and matching hat, holding the hand of a little child as the widow puts a wreath on the grave plot fence.
November 23, 2025 at 12:39 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead U is for Undertaker is one of the entries brilliantly illustrated by @landisblair.bsky.social in A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death, a book about the basics of Victorian death practices. Available worldwide.
black and white illustration of undertaker directing pallbearers carrying a coffin from church to hearse.
November 23, 2025 at 12:32 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead U is for Undertaker, from a child's ABC book published in Philadelphia, PA, c. 1857.
digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/digital/coll...
Hand colored black and white print of U is for Undertaker, showing a man with a coffin carried on his back by a forehead strap, holding his hat in one hand and a bag in the other.
November 23, 2025 at 12:26 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead With the holiday season coming up, let me tout one of my books on Victorian mourning: "Long-lost tales of the morbid, mournful, and macabre from the Victorian era." Available worldwide. Please ask your local bookstore or library to order it.
Black and white cover of The Victorian Book of the Dead showing a skeletal angel and a "human" angel holding a large book in front of some Gothic arches. Back cover of The Victorian Book of the Dead showing two urns and weeping trees flanking the cover blurb, with a dove flying overhead
November 22, 2025 at 7:11 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
Zeppelin Cats soaring high on #Caturday.
1914 illustration from "American Cookery"
Two kittens in clothes in a toy zeppelin surrounded by a border of stars
November 22, 2025 at 2:53 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
For a pre- #Thanksgiving #ForteanFriday The Gobblers’ll Git You, If You Don’t Watch Out!
Ghostly gobblers who tap at your windows and gobble in the garret…
hauntedohiobooks.com/news/animal-...
Black and white illustration of a turkey skeleton, labeled with different parts of the bones.
November 21, 2025 at 3:57 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#PhantomsFriday A giant ghost at Benton, Indiana, 1896. "The Weird Visitor is Eight Feet High and Wears White Robes Shooting Parties Fill It With Buckshot With Harmless Results Carries a Club and Haunts the Cemetery"
"Killed by a Specter" chapter in The Ghost Wore Black, available worldwide.
Ghost in long robe, holding a club, standing before a church, holding up at hand, while a horse balks in the road. Cover of The Ghost Wore Black Ghastly Tales from the Past, Chris Woodyard, skeletal figure seen through a sheer black veil.
November 21, 2025 at 1:36 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead #WorldChildrensDay
The Barker Children, John Constable, c. 1809. They are all dressed in different degrees of mourning, as appropriate for their ages.
www.mutualart.com/Artwork/A-GR...
Three children; a young girl dressed all in black, with her hand on a younger sibling's shoulder. The young child in the center wears a white off-the-shoulder frock with pantalettes, a black sash, and red shoes. The other child wears a sheer black skirt over a white dress and leans against the youngest child's arm.
November 20, 2025 at 4:18 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Mourning hat, c. 1910 with mourning band. 1896: "For loss of wife, the band of mourning worn upon a silk hat is carried to within an eighth of an inch of the top; for the loss of a parent, the band is worn to within an inch of the top."
www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...
Black top hat with a very wide mourning band
November 20, 2025 at 4:13 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead 1854 "We question the propriety of children wearing mourning at all, since they cannot understand its meaning." Etiquette usually suggested white with black ribbons for the very young. Black with white accents was thought appropriate for teens.
Personal collection
A blond child in a white lacy frock with black ribbons and a young girl wearing a black dress with white lace collar and cuffs and a black hair net, in front of a green-upholstered chair draped in a red shawl.
November 20, 2025 at 4:04 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVIctorianBookoftheDead A paper shroud for Baby: 1899
thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com/2025/11/19/a... [Alert: The original post is headed by a child's post-mortem photograph, which may be upsetting to some readers.]
#WorldChildrensDay
Woman with a long robe and veil, partly covering her face, carrying a small coffin under her arm. Masked mourners carry coffins in the background, led by a priest.
November 20, 2025 at 2:27 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Two unusual accessories, blackened for mourning: a skirt lifter (on the right) and what the auction house calls a chatelaine, but which I think is more likely to be a sovereign case.
www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2185480...
Two items in blackened metal. The first with three round elements framed in small bead frames and strung together with chains; the second a long strap with grips on top and bottom. Two items in blackened metal. The first with three round elements framed in small bead frames and strung together with chains. it has a hook to fasten over a belt; the second is a long strap with grips on top and bottom.
November 19, 2025 at 6:24 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead 1897
FRIEND OF THE FAMILY (to inconsolable young widow who tells of going to bury herself in a convent.): But don’t you think, my dear, it is very foolish for a pretty woman like yourself to think of abandoning the world at the age of thirty?
YOUNG WIDOW: Twenty-nine!
Young man holding a top hat, leans earnestly towards a young woman in a dark dress, with her hands in her lap.
November 19, 2025 at 6:19 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#WyrdWednesday The apparitional "Women in Black," veiled and dressed in widow’s weeds, were a female equivalent of Spring-heeled Jack. Seemingly bullet-proof and uncatchable, they flitted about in the dark, causing small-town panics across the 19th-century US. hauntedohiobooks.com/news/mistres...
Mannequin dressed in a long, trained black dress, wearing a waist-length veil. Cover of The Ghost Wore Black Ghastly Tales from the Past, Chris Woodyard. A skeletal face is seen under a semi-sheer lace veil.
November 19, 2025 at 2:29 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead
The Widower, Carl Spitzweg, 1844
sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/the-...
Man in black suit with knee breeches, with a top hat, cane, and white handkerchief, sits on a bench by a garden path and watches two women, one in blue and one in pink, walk along the path.
November 18, 2025 at 2:00 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead
Widowed and Fatherless, Leon Jean Bazile Perrault, 1874
blackcountryhistory.org/collections/...
Women in a black dress with semi-transparent, banded sleeves, sits drowsing by the side of her child sleeping in a draped crib.
November 18, 2025 at 1:57 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Elegant black hearse, c. 1885-1890, with urns, garlands, and shields on the roof. Originally from Schoonhoven-Buytendijk stables in Utrecht.
collectie.centraalmuseum.nl/details/coll...
Photograph of a 19th century hearse with black draperies on sides and on the driver's seat, black urns and garlands on the roof, and metal lanterns on each corner.
November 17, 2025 at 4:57 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead Mourning ring, 1801, of black enamel, with a hair locket bezel framed in pearls. The locket swivels with the inscription "JANE NICKSON OB: 21 Dec. 1801 AE: 60" on the reverse.
www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/...
Ring with rectangular bezel with a glass hair locket framed in pearls. The rest of the ring is gold with black enamel with a leaf pattern.
November 17, 2025 at 4:51 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
Grinning and bearing it on #MementoMoriMonday
Peyst er wel op
1821 memorial for Franciscus Schramme
adlib.catharijneconvent.nl/Details/coll...
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead
Black and white image of skull with bared teeth on crossed bones on a stone plinth, skull and stone wreathed in vines.
November 17, 2025 at 4:38 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
It does sound like an explosion--great description! It is not the same as bombazine, which was a wool or wool/silk fabric sometimes with a slight lustre. Crape was made of silk (or sometimes silk/wool) and has a crinkled finish added by running it through rollers. 1) Crape 2) Bombazine
close up view of black crinkled crape fabric Long black dress with puckered trim on the skirt, a fitted bodice, and white collars and cuffs.
November 16, 2025 at 10:43 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead #NationalButtonDay One indication of mourning for soldiers was a piece of crape covering the second button of the tunic. This was not an officially approved symbol of mourning.
Photo from 1914
www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en/contribut...
Photograph of a family, 1914. The boy in a light-colored tunic suit with dark shoes and stockings; the woman in a black taffeta blouse and dark skirt, holding the boy's hand. The man is in military uniform with a black belt and a single black-covered button on his tunic.
November 16, 2025 at 3:26 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead #NationalButtonDay
Mourning dress of crape and imperial serge, with several rows of buttons, which might have been cloth-covered or of glass molded to look like crape, 1895
Illustration of woman wearing a black dress with large puffy sleeves, trimmed with several rows of buttons. She also wears a ribboned hat. Round button molded to look like mourning crape fabric.
November 16, 2025 at 3:16 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead #NationalButtonDay
Two glass mourning buttons textured to look like mourning crape. The "beads" framing the first button are molded in one piece to look like faceted jet.
Round button with crape-textured glass center and a frame molded to look like faceted glass beads Round button textured to look like black mourning crape
November 16, 2025 at 3:11 PM
chriswoodyard.bsky.social
#TheVictorianBookoftheDead A mourning locket in onyx and enamel with an initial of pearls set in gold.
www.gazette-drouot.com/lots/9181996...
An oval black locket with a shiny finish, topped with a swirling initial in gold and pearls. The glass of the locket insert is shown at the right.
November 15, 2025 at 2:53 PM