Unburied
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- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- Publication date:
- 17 January 2026
- ISBN:
- 9781526175946
- 9781526175922
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- Subjects:
- Humanities, Engineering, Engineering: General Interest, General
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- Humanities, Engineering, Engineering: General Interest, General
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Book description
The book explores the story of Hannah Beswick, a woman who was embalmed by her doctor in the eighteenth century, and then displayed as a museum exhibit in Georgian/Victorian Manchester. It is the first full-length study of the case of the Manchester Mummy, and it offers a carefully researched journey through Hannah Beswick’s life, death and afterlife. This book explores museum history, attitudes to mummification and the display of human remains, and the Victorian turn to the macabre, alongside eighteenth-century ideas of anatomy, corpses and ‘curiosities’, to debunk the legends and uncover what the story of Hannah Beswick can tell us about the cultural history of death and dying, mummies and museums. In uncovering the true story behind this particular ‘curiosity’, the book explores the social and cultural history of public health, funeral practices, class, urban development and education that underpin an understanding of how the ‘legend’ of Hannah Beswick came into existence. Significantly, the book also offers a humane and sensitive consideration of the woman's life and relationships, bringing Hannah Beswick ‘to life’ through extensive and wide-ranging archival material and concluding with a more nuanced explanation for the mummification and display of the woman’s body.
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