The Undiscovered Country

Reviews / Votes

A first-class study of British attitudes to death and dying from the Middle Ages to the 20th century... A fascinating work of social history that is both scholarly and accessible to general readers * Financial Times * Watkins has a gift for conveying a feeling of place, and is good at conjuring up the dead, lifting the veil so that we can have a peek into the grave and beyond * Good Book Guide * Outstanding ... This may be a book about death but, paradoxically, it is one filled with intelligence and life * Sunday Times * Superbly written, shows how the meaning of life is still everywhere connected to what it means to die -- Ian Thomson * Financial Times * A sensitive and fascinating history of an "undiscovered country" which, in many ways, mirrors the story of Britain -- John Gallagher * Sunday Telegraph * Watkins is one of those rare guides who never overstays his welcome. He wears his research lightly as he journeys around the British landscape, teasing out themes and cultural shifts from the particulars of individual lives -- Iain Sinclair * Guardian * This is a wonderful book: curious, insightful and beautifully written -- Ian Mortimer * Author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England * This is a wonderful book: curious, insightful and beautifully written. It has something of the qualities of James Fraser's The Golden Bough about it - a discovery of life that is not concerned with day-to-day existence but deeper symbolism and meaning. I love the details, from medieval stories of walking spirits to Age-of-Reason sceptics, bodysnatchers and ceremonies of the dead. All in all, it is a walk along the shoreline of death over the centuries, watching the tides of belief change, and hearing the waves of imagination, superstition and wonderment crash on the reality of our lives. -- Ian Mortimer A scholarly but compelling meditation on the nature of death and dying. Persuasive, humane and beautifully written, Watkins writes like a latter day Thomas Browne - this is Urn Burial for the 21st century. Watkins wears his learning lightly as he conducts us through the nether regions of the underworld. Highly recommended. -- Catharine Arnold From lost medieval souls to the rattling tables of nineteenth-century spiritualism, The Undiscovered Country is an evocative journey through a landscape of superstition, belief and doubt. It is also a brilliantly perceptive exploration of how our desire to connect with the departed, and with the idea of death itself, shapes who we are. Carl Watkins is a gifted historian and a masterful storyteller - and this is a marvellous book. -- Thomas Penn