A People’s History of Mortality

A People’s History of Mortality

We all die, but how we die, according to social historian and bereavement counsellor Molly Conisbee, is culturally and historically contingent William Hogarth, The Reward of Cruelty, 1750-51, etching and engraving. Public domain In William Hogarth’s 1750–51 engraving The Reward of Cruelty, the corpse of a fictional murderer, Tom Nero, lies naked on a table, his abdomen hollowed out by four anatomists who dissect him under the public gaze. It’s a…