Death loomed large in Victorian London. Murder dominated not only headlines but also popular media such as fiction and theater, as London grappled with regular outbreaks of disease, and personal mourning turned into a show of fashion and wealth. Where did this preoccupation with death come from, and what can it tell us about Victorian society as a whole? While these specific changes resulted from cultural accumulations, many of them stemmed from how London itself grew during this period. The industrialization, urbanization, and overall development of London into a thriving metropolis changed the ways its citizens interacted with death
