[Rarebooks] FS: Confessions of an Undertaker... (1920)

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

TITLE: “Confessions of an Undertaker”

By Charles W. Berg.
Printed in Wichita by the McCormick-Armstrong Press in 1920.

DISCUSSION: A critical look at the inside of the funeral business by a
lifelong undertaker. His general outlook is summed up best by a few quotes
from the last chapter- "Why is it...that we still persist in making such
gruesome affairs of funerals? No sooner does some loved one pass from our
vision to a better life than we immediately darken the house, bolt every
shutter, draw every curtain, go around on tip-toe and speak in whispers,
hang that abomination of all funerals, a strip of crepe paper, on the
door, and fairly swathe ourselves in deepest black, until the house
becomes verily a place to flee from? Nor is there anything quite so
barbarous as the present custom...of 'viewing the remains' by a motley
collection of persons, many of whom never knew the dead in life, or if
they did, never thought enough of him to come and see him. Only second to
this (is the) mental caliber of a community that bases the popularity of a
man on the length of his 'funeral procession'." And so on...

The chapters include:

-Custom: Its Influence on Observances in Connection with Death and Burial
-Coffin-Seller to Funeral Director
-The Modern Undertaking Establishment
-Embalming: As Practiced Today
-Funeral Merchandise and Professional Services
-Funeral Arrangement
-Military and Fraternity Funerals
-The Inside of the Undertaking Business
-The Undertaker’s Profits
-Earth-Burial, Mausoleums, and Cremation.

A very uncommon book in the marketplace.

DESCRIPTION: Hardcover. 5"x7.5", 114 pages; publisher’s sky-blue ribbed
cloth with gilt titles.

CONDITION NOTES: Minor wear, light soil, pinhole in the spine, but
otherwise clean and nice, with a tight binding.

PRICE: $200 -

SOME PICTURES =>

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Fine books of the 16th-20th centuries
on the decorative and fine arts & design

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