A Tomb With A View By Peter Ross

In the 18th century there was a fad for what was later dubbed – a hundred years later – “The Graveyard Poets”. The most famous is Thomas Gray’s

Churchyard, from which we get phrases like “far from the madding crowd” and “mute, inglorious Miltons”; but there were plenty more, such as Robert Blair’s The Grave, Edward Young’s Night-Thoughts and Thomas Parnell’s A Night-Piece On Death.

Now journalist Peter Ross makes a fine modern contribution to this genre with A Tomb With A View. It demonstrates his great skill as a listener. Though I have some caveats, I have nothing but admiration for his way to winkle out a story from the living as well as paying homage to the dead.

Ross vividly captures the way in which a graveyard is a “library of the dead”. He seeks out particular graves and stumbles over unlikely ones, and does his research thoroughly into the brief biographies. They are, as Thomas Gray wrote, “the short and simple annals of the poor”.

Ross is better on those who tend the dead. The chapter on Islamic funerals is done with grace and dignity, and he has an eye for the toothsome story; so we have the “Queerly Departed” tour of LGBTQ+ graves, the “Stepney Amazon” Phoebe Hessel