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Free Online Talk · Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Death and Mourning Death and Mourning with Author Paul Gambino
Monday, November 17, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Mourning and Death
A Lecture and Book Signing with Paul Gambino
Step into the shadowed world of nineteenth-century mourning rituals and discover how grief, beauty, and death intertwined to shape one of history’s most fascinating cultural eras. Internationally recognized author and collector Paul Gambino returns with his latest work, Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Mourning and Death (Quarto, 2025), a richly illustrated exploration of how disease, ritual, and remembrance profoundly influenced Victorian life on both sides of the Atlantic.
Far from being hidden away, death during the Victorian period became a defining public spectacle. From the moment Queen Victoria donned black following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, mourning became codified into elaborate fashion, etiquette, and ceremony. In this captivating lecture, audiences will travel through this era of grief transformed into art: sprawling necropolises designed as “cities of the dead,” treasured memento mori, and the eerie beauty of postmortem photography.
Drawing upon decades of collecting and research, Gambino reveals how the Victorians ritualized loss with a richness and theatricality unparalleled in history. Attendees will learn how black crepe and jet jewelry became symbols of status and sorrow, how séances and spiritualist practices promised communication with the departed, and how Gothic literature—from Frankenstein to Dracula—mirrored society’s obsessions with mortality and the afterlife.
Through rare images and little-known stories, Gambino connects the rituals of the past with the enduring fascination we continue to feel today. His work bridges research and storytelling, offering a vivid, immersive journey into the Victorian imagination—a place where grief became art, and mourning was worn like a second skin.
Join us for an unforgettable evening where history, art, and the macabre converge.
Paul Gambino is the author of five acclaimed books exploring death culture, macabre artifacts, and Gothic interiors, including Morbid Curiosities: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre, SKULLS: Portraits of the Dead and the Stories They Tell, Killer Collections: Dark Artifacts from True Crime, and The Art of Gothic Living: Dark Décor for the Modern Macabre. His expertise, honed through decades of collecting and deep research, gives him unparalleled access to some of the world’s most unusual and rarely seen collections.
Gambino’s storytelling bridges rigorous historical scholarship with the curiosity and fascination that death culture continues to inspire. In his latest book, Beyond the Veil, he offers readers an immersive experience into one of history’s most intriguing cultural obsessions.
Monday, November 17, 2025
7pm ET (NYC time)
Free! RSVP with email at checkout
PLEASE NOTE: Video playback of free events is only available to Patreon members. Become a Member HERE.
Ticketholders: A Zoom invite is sent out two hours before the event to the email used at checkout. Please check your spam folder and if not received, email hello@morbidanatomy.org.
Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Mourning and Death
A Lecture and Book Signing with Paul Gambino
Step into the shadowed world of nineteenth-century mourning rituals and discover how grief, beauty, and death intertwined to shape one of history’s most fascinating cultural eras. Internationally recognized author and collector Paul Gambino returns with his latest work, Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Mourning and Death (Quarto, 2025), a richly illustrated exploration of how disease, ritual, and remembrance profoundly influenced Victorian life on both sides of the Atlantic.
Far from being hidden away, death during the Victorian period became a defining public spectacle. From the moment Queen Victoria donned black following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, mourning became codified into elaborate fashion, etiquette, and ceremony. In this captivating lecture, audiences will travel through this era of grief transformed into art: sprawling necropolises designed as “cities of the dead,” treasured memento mori, and the eerie beauty of postmortem photography.
Drawing upon decades of collecting and research, Gambino reveals how the Victorians ritualized loss with a richness and theatricality unparalleled in history. Attendees will learn how black crepe and jet jewelry became symbols of status and sorrow, how séances and spiritualist practices promised communication with the departed, and how Gothic literature—from Frankenstein to Dracula—mirrored society’s obsessions with mortality and the afterlife.
Through rare images and little-known stories, Gambino connects the rituals of the past with the enduring fascination we continue to feel today. His work bridges research and storytelling, offering a vivid, immersive journey into the Victorian imagination—a place where grief became art, and mourning was worn like a second skin.
Join us for an unforgettable evening where history, art, and the macabre converge.
Paul Gambino is the author of five acclaimed books exploring death culture, macabre artifacts, and Gothic interiors, including Morbid Curiosities: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre, SKULLS: Portraits of the Dead and the Stories They Tell, Killer Collections: Dark Artifacts from True Crime, and The Art of Gothic Living: Dark Décor for the Modern Macabre. His expertise, honed through decades of collecting and deep research, gives him unparalleled access to some of the world’s most unusual and rarely seen collections.
Gambino’s storytelling bridges rigorous historical scholarship with the curiosity and fascination that death culture continues to inspire. In his latest book, Beyond the Veil, he offers readers an immersive experience into one of history’s most intriguing cultural obsessions.