Rites of Passage

In Rites of Passage, acclaimed historian Judith Flanders deconstructs the intricate, fascinating, and occasionally – to modern eyes – bizarre customs that grew up around death and mourning in Victorian Britain.Through stories from the sickbed to the deathbed, from the correct way to grieve and to give comfort to those grieving to funerals and burials and the reaction of those left behind, Flanders illuminates how living in nineteenth-century Britain was, in so many ways, dictated by dying.This is an engrossing, deeply researched and, at times, chilling social history of a period plagued by infant death, poverty, disease, and unprecedented change. In elegant, often witty prose, Flanders brings the Victorian way of death vividly to life.

Judith Flanders

Judith Flanders is a historian, journalist and author. Her writings centre on the Victorian period. Her book, ‘A Circle of Sisters’ followed the lives of four female siblings and ‘The Invention of Murder’ investigated crime of the era. Recently she has served as a narrator, historian, and advisor for the Ubisoft video game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate.

Flanders also writes as an arts critic, on books, dance, art, and recently video games. Her work has appeared in The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, The Spectator and The Times Literary Supplement.