Book description
We know what happens to the body when we die, but what happens to the
soul? The answer may remain a great unknown, but the question has
shaped centuries of tradition, folklore and religious belief.
In this vivid history of the macabre, Carl Watkins goes in search of
the ancient customs, local characters and compelling tales that
illuminate how people over the years have come to terms with our
ultimate fate. He discovers what a small Norfolk church has to tell us
about the apocalypse; why the greatest minds of the seventeenth
century were embroiled in debate over the phantom Drummer of Tedworth;
and how a nineteenth-century Welsh Druid completely changed the
national view of cremation.
The result is an enthralling journey into Britain's past, from
medieval hauntings on the Yorkshire moors and eccentric memorials on
the Cornish coast to séances in Victorian kitchens and gallows tales
from a Bristol gaol. Impeccably researched and elegantly told, The
Undiscovered Country ventures beyond the veil to bring the dead
back to life.
Born and bred in Warwickshire, Carl Watkins read history at
Cambridge, where he is now lecturer in medieval history and a fellow of
Magdalene College. He writes about belief and has published on the
history of ghosts, the afterlife, saints and folklore. His first book,
History and the Supernatural in Medieval England
,
was published by CUP in 2007, and he has contributed to a forthcoming
Cambridge history of medieval England. He has also appeared on Radio 3's
Night Waves
, in a number of programmes for Radio 4's series
The Long View
and on a number of television documentaries. He lives in Cambridge.
