Please note this is NOT a ZOOM lecture but an in person lecture. Tickets include a complimentary glass of Devil’s Botany Chocolate Absinthe. Doors open at 6:30pm and talk starts at 7pm
Beyond the Veil: The Victorian Obsession with Mourning and Death (Quarto, 2025), is a comprehensive exploration of how grief, ritual, and aesthetics profoundly shaped every aspect of Victorian life—from postmortem photography to mourning fashion, ghostly séances to grand necropolises.
This is not just a history of death culture—it’s a vivid exploration of how an entire society transformed loss into elaborate ceremony and art, and how that legacy continues to fascinate us today.
Topics addressed in the lecture are:
The Queen of Death: Queen Victoria’s reign of doom and gloom
Death Beyond the Monarchy: Sickness, infant mortality, and the average lifespan
Medicine as a Deadly Practice
The Art of Mourning: Dying’s influence over fashion and the arts
Spiritualism and Séances: Contacting the departed
Death in Black and White: Victorian Gothic literature
Memento Mori: Keepsakes of the dead
Daguerreotypes of Dead: Postmortem photography
Jack the Ripper: The Monster of Whitechapel
The Death of a Queen: England sheds the veil
As the author of five books on death culture, macabre artifacts, and Gothic interiors—including Morbid Curiosities, SKULLS, Killer Collections and The Art of Gothic Living—Paul Gambino brings a unique blend of historical research, storytelling, and insider access to some of the world’s most unusual collections.
About the Author
Paul Gambino has been an avid collector of the bizarre for over 20 years with an extensive collection of Victorian memorial photographs, antique funeria, mug shots, and vintage religious items (including a life-sized St. Sebastian and Virgin Mary salvaged from a 19th-century church in Pennsylvania). The past two decades of serious collecting have allowed Paul to gain the trust of some of the world’s most prominent macabre collectors. Paul Gambino’s books include: MORBID CURIOSITIES: Collections of the Uncommon and the Bizarre, SKULLS: Portraits of the Dead, KILLER COLLECTIONS: Dark Artifacts from True Crime, THE ART OF GOTHIC LIVING: Dark Decor for the Modern Macabre and BEYOND THE VEIL: The Victorian Obsession With Mourning and Death.
The Absinthe Parlour at The Last Tuesday Society is London’s best award-winning alternative cocktail bar hidden within The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities. A drinker’s cabinet of wonder filled curious cocktails & extraordinary elixirs —The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour is truly a hidden treasure of East London. Opened by collectors, drinks historians & absinthe experts — Allison Crawbuck (Brooklyn) & Rhys Everett (London) in 2016, the duo bring with them a shared passion for the mysterious world of spirits & the macabre.
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Devil’s Botany is the UK’s first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour. Celebrating spirit’s connection to art, literature, magic & mixology, Devil’s Botany is unleashing the future of absinthe with bold expressions for the adventurous drinkers of today. The Last Tuesday Society’s curious Monday night lecture series is sponsored by Devil’s Botany.
The venue opens at 18:30. Doors will close at 19:00 to avoid disrupting the speaker. We kindly ask that all guests arrive before 19:00. Refunds are not possible for in person events with less than seven days notice in any circumstances. Please note, the museum of curiosities is not opened on Mondays during our lectures.
