Gleanings in Graveyards

Gravestones preserve jokes as well as grief in Horatio Edward Norfolk's collection of British epitaphs. Arranged through English counties, with further sections for Wales, Scotland and miscellaneous inscriptions, the volume gathers memorial verses whose odd wording often carries a story of its own. Norfolk introduces the collection by comparing burial inscriptions across cultures and explaining his interest in the quaint and absurd.

The entries move between family affection, religious hope, sharp complaints and puns on names or occupations. A bellows maker's memorial turns on the breath he could never manufacture, while other verses remember a faithful worker or mourn an unreturned love. More solemn inscriptions sit alongside the comic ones, giving the collection a changing tone. For readers interested in local history, popular verse or the language of remembrance, these brief records show how personal feeling could take an unexpectedly public form.