No Ordinary Deaths

History is written by the A-listers' deaths - the queens beheaded and archdukes assassinated. We hardly ever learn how ordinary folk met their end and with what consequences, or consider how death has moulded our beliefs, politics and societies through time.

Historian and bereavement counsellor Molly Conisbee reveals how cycles of dying, death and disposal have shaped the lives of everyday people. Richly told and startlingly fresh, Conisbee's evocations of a cross-dressing madam in Victorian London or the professional death-watchers of the Middle Ages, of wakes, plague pits and graverobbers, all paint a fascinating picture of the hopes, fears and wishes of our forebears.