London, 1868 and visiting Australian Aboriginal cricketer Charles Rose has died in Guy’s Hospital. What happened next is shrouded in mystery. The only certainty is that – like Mary Whitehead who died in the nearby Newington Workhouse and Eugene Green who shot himself on a deserted Adelaide railway platform – Charles Rose’s body did not go directly to a grave.
Possessing the Dead explores the disturbing history of the cadaver trade in Scotland, England and Australia after laws gave certain officials possession of the dead. No corpse lying in a workhouse, hospital, asylum or gaol was then entirely safe from them.
With a rare blend of curiosity, delight in the unexpected and an eye for detail Helen MacDonald brings this murky past alive to reveal the artful strategies through which bodies were obtained to dissect, autopsy and collect for museums.
Drawing on a rich array of original material, Possessing the Dead exposes the chicanery that lay at the core of these transactions.
Possessing the Dead is published by Melbourne University Press on 1 June 2010.