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The Dead Hand Book: Stories From Gravesend Cemetery
The Dead Hand Book is a memorial to mortality and the ancestral liaison with death through quiet and sweetly-macabre short stories.
The Dead Hand Book is a memorial to mortality and the ancestral liaison with death through quiet and sweetly-macabre short stories. The collection of fables is inspired by the manner those long gone have had their memories engraved onto slate and marble stones with the cadence of an old Folk song or Murder Ballad. Tales of warning, the deepest loves honored by surviving paramours and the indifferent cruelty of life in the 17th-20th century are all recorded in the Stories From Gravesend Cemetery. The purpose of this book is to educate the casual cemetery wanderer about how to read the old stones they pass by and to excite the #deathpositivity movement enthusiast or morbidly curious. This book aims help honor those who have come before us by opening the door of understanding the strange records inscribed in old cemeteries; many of those interred below having only that record of their life existing on a crumbling stone. The stories are short and often open-ended to allow the reader to contemplate their interpretation of the endings, maybe even their own mortality. (Much like the way Edward Gorey crafted his short stories.) Modern attitudes towards death have become sodden with superstition, misinformation and fear; this book’s goal is to illuminate how those of the near past embraced, cared for, and honored death as an obvious part of life. Not long ago art was very much an integral part of funerary celebrations such as elaborate Memento Mori carvings on ancient gravestones and the hair jewelry of the Victorians. Those relics are celebrated in The Dead Hand Book.
The Dead Hand Book is a memorial to mortality and the ancestral liaison with death through quiet and sweetly-macabre short stories. The collection of fables is inspired by the manner those long gone have had their memories engraved onto slate and marble stones with the cadence of an old Folk song or Murder Ballad. Tales of warning, the deepest loves honored by surviving paramours and the indifferent cruelty of life in the 17th-20th century are all recorded in the Stories From Gravesend Cemetery. The purpose of this book is to educate the casual cemetery wanderer about how to read the old stones they pass by and to excite the #deathpositivity movement enthusiast or morbidly curious. This book aims help honor those who have come before us by opening the door of understanding the strange records inscribed in old cemeteries; many of those interred below having only that record of their life existing on a crumbling stone. The stories are short and often open-ended to allow the reader to contemplate their interpretation of the endings, maybe even their own mortality. (Much like the way Edward Gorey crafted his short stories.) Modern attitudes towards death have become sodden with superstition, misinformation and fear; this book’s goal is to illuminate how those of the near past embraced, cared for, and honored death as an obvious part of life. Not long ago art was very much an integral part of funerary celebrations such as elaborate Memento Mori carvings on ancient gravestones and the hair jewelry of the Victorians. Those relics are celebrated in The Dead Hand Book.
- GenresFiction
96 pages, Hardcover
Published October 26, 2021
1 person is currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
Sara Richard
50 books8 followersMy name is Lady Sara Richard and I am an Eisner and Ringo Award nominated fine artist and illustrator as well as a writer of short stories currently residing in the woods of New Hampshire. I am most known for illustrating comic book covers for companies such as IDW Publishing, Oni Press, Marvel, Dynamite Comics, Action Lab Ent.; with other illustration work for DC Collectables, StormKing, The Witch House in Salem, MA., and Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles. My art can also be seen at the Historic Oakland Cemetery’s Visitor Center in Atlanta and has been printed in British VOGUE, Vanity Fair, and The World of Interiors magazine to name a few.
My inspirations come from Victorian funerary and mourning customs, Art Nouveau and Art Deco as well as the history and eerie ambiance of Salem, Massachusetts. Why Salem? Other than my mind being on permanent vacation inside a late Victorian-era New England autumn, I am the 10th Great Grand Daughter of one of the victims of the Witch Trials, Margaret Scott. As for the title of “Lady,” I own small plots of conservation land in Aberdeenshire and Glencoe, Scotland; another place that inspires my art and where my mind wanders to.
My goal as an artist is to explore my fascination with what might lie beyond the veil. To curb that intrigue with a beautiful twist, to find that beauty in bones, emotion in an old skull, to capture the movement of a ghost on the wind and to draw upon the aesthetics of the past. History and art have always gone hand in hand for me be it in the world of painters and authors of the mid to late 1800s, to the Deco-age of the 1920’s. I am as fascinated with painting wildlife and exploring their symbolism as I am with painting gorgeous human figures who may or may not have already passed on. The artistry of the Victorians especially in their mourning customs really resonates and inspires me. Their absolute commitment to memorial and bravery facing their mortality is such a foreign attitude today. I’d like to bring a modern light to that historical mindset translated through my art.
My inspirations come from Victorian funerary and mourning customs, Art Nouveau and Art Deco as well as the history and eerie ambiance of Salem, Massachusetts. Why Salem? Other than my mind being on permanent vacation inside a late Victorian-era New England autumn, I am the 10th Great Grand Daughter of one of the victims of the Witch Trials, Margaret Scott. As for the title of “Lady,” I own small plots of conservation land in Aberdeenshire and Glencoe, Scotland; another place that inspires my art and where my mind wanders to.
My goal as an artist is to explore my fascination with what might lie beyond the veil. To curb that intrigue with a beautiful twist, to find that beauty in bones, emotion in an old skull, to capture the movement of a ghost on the wind and to draw upon the aesthetics of the past. History and art have always gone hand in hand for me be it in the world of painters and authors of the mid to late 1800s, to the Deco-age of the 1920’s. I am as fascinated with painting wildlife and exploring their symbolism as I am with painting gorgeous human figures who may or may not have already passed on. The artistry of the Victorians especially in their mourning customs really resonates and inspires me. Their absolute commitment to memorial and bravery facing their mortality is such a foreign attitude today. I’d like to bring a modern light to that historical mindset translated through my art.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 11, 2022
The Dead Hand Book: Stories From Gravesend Cemetery is an illustrated collection of short stories from the titular location drawn and written by Sara Richard. A mixture of melancholy, the macabre, and the creepy Richard writes as short story on a gravestone or memorial on one page of a two-page black-and-white illustration that brings the words to “life” but reveals even more to the astute observer. As a longtime fan of Richard’s art, this 96-page book did not disappoint.
January 5, 2023
First read: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews