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Who Lies Where: A Guide To Famous Graves
Who LIes Where is the final chapter in the lives of the famous and a guide to the wonderful world of the dead in all its quirkiness, character, variety, humor, and pathos. With tales from London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cardiff to the sacred sites of Glastonbury and Bardsey Island, and visiting graveyards as famous as Highgate or the Necropolis of Glasgow, Michael Kerrigan reports on the deaths, last wishes, and burials of a vast array of Britons: from eighth-century kings to twentieth-century kings of comedy, feted socialists to flamboyant satanists.
- GenresHistoryTravelNonfiction
408 pages, Paperback
First published November 6, 1995
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About the author
Michael Kerrigan
173 books20 followersMichael Kerrigan is a seasoned freelance writer and editor with over thirty years of experience across a wide spectrum of publishing work, from advertising and catalogue copy to book blurbs and specialist nonfiction. A prolific author, he has written around sixty full-length books on subjects ranging from ancient warfare and Slavic myth to modern architecture and the science of consciousness, all aimed at a general readership. He contributed a weekly Books in Brief column to The Scotsman for two decades and has reviewed extensively for the Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, and Financial Times.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 17, 2012
While the title doesn't offer a clue, this is a book about the "famous" dead buried in the United Kingdom. The famous include Lord Tweedmore, Dame Clara Butt, Sir Anthony Eden, among many more, whose names were unfamiliar even after I read about them.
Even when the names are familiar, the book offers very little information about them. Roald Dahl is summed up as "the unrivaled master of the grotesque and ghoulish in children's fiction," without identifying him as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It continues to confide that he's buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and Paul in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, but without any description of the grave or where it lies or how it's marked, I'm not sure what good the listing does you.
The book is organized into sections for England, London, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, then subdivided by county. The counties are broken into towns, then further minced into specific churches or graveyards. I might like this book more if I had more familiarity with the nooks and crannies of the United Kingdom. As it is, I don't know my Avon from my Yorkshire West and there's no map in these pages to help me. There's an index of people mentioned in the book, but not of the cemeteries covered.
The descriptions are too brief. The book reports that, "In the choir (Loren's note: not quire, as Salisbury Cathedral calls it) lies Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke" who died in 1621. She was an author and translator, as the book notes, but more importantly, she was the first English woman recognized as a poet in her own right. Her name numbers among those floated to be the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. Who Lies Where quotes a biographer who claims she “was very salacious” and liked to watch her stallions mount her mares, then sport with the stallions herself. Talk about TMI.
The book ignores everyone else buried in the cathedral, including a crusader who was half-brother to Richard the Lionhearted and the man responsible for distributing copies of the Magna Carta around England. It condenses Highgate Cemetery in fewer than 4 pages. The listing for Kensal Green spans 4-1/2 pages and ends with the cremation of Freddie Mercury, whose ashes were scattered at Lake Geneva, although you wouldn't know that from reading this book.
I was hoping to find a graveyard book that would guide me beyond London's reasonably well-documented cemeteries. This one is no help at all.
Even when the names are familiar, the book offers very little information about them. Roald Dahl is summed up as "the unrivaled master of the grotesque and ghoulish in children's fiction," without identifying him as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It continues to confide that he's buried in the churchyard of St. Peter and Paul in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, but without any description of the grave or where it lies or how it's marked, I'm not sure what good the listing does you.
The book is organized into sections for England, London, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, then subdivided by county. The counties are broken into towns, then further minced into specific churches or graveyards. I might like this book more if I had more familiarity with the nooks and crannies of the United Kingdom. As it is, I don't know my Avon from my Yorkshire West and there's no map in these pages to help me. There's an index of people mentioned in the book, but not of the cemeteries covered.
The descriptions are too brief. The book reports that, "In the choir (Loren's note: not quire, as Salisbury Cathedral calls it) lies Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke" who died in 1621. She was an author and translator, as the book notes, but more importantly, she was the first English woman recognized as a poet in her own right. Her name numbers among those floated to be the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. Who Lies Where quotes a biographer who claims she “was very salacious” and liked to watch her stallions mount her mares, then sport with the stallions herself. Talk about TMI.
The book ignores everyone else buried in the cathedral, including a crusader who was half-brother to Richard the Lionhearted and the man responsible for distributing copies of the Magna Carta around England. It condenses Highgate Cemetery in fewer than 4 pages. The listing for Kensal Green spans 4-1/2 pages and ends with the cremation of Freddie Mercury, whose ashes were scattered at Lake Geneva, although you wouldn't know that from reading this book.
I was hoping to find a graveyard book that would guide me beyond London's reasonably well-documented cemeteries. This one is no help at all.
Want to read
March 9, 2020An excellent bedtime book - had to return due to checkout limits, but will definitely re-check out and continue reading.
July 22, 2014
For travel to the UK
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews