Master of the macabre: Horror writer's weird and wonderful 'Death Collection' which includes execution pictures and photos of women modelling burial gowns



Michael McDowell collected hundreds of photographs of dead people



Author amassed collection over 30 years

Northwestern University in Illinois preparing to exhibit collection

The archive includes at least one artifact dating to the 16th century

Includes 'spirit' photographs with images of living and dead people

A horror writer who collected photographs of people after they had died is having his gruesome catalogue showcased by an American college.



Acclaimed author Michael McDowell gathered photographs as well as other sombre 'memorabilia' including adverts for burial gowns and pins containing locks of dead people's hair. He even used a coffin housing a skeleton as his coffee table.



Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, bought the 'Death Collection' McDowell amassed in three decades before his own death in 1999 and is now preparing to open the vault.



Grisly end: As well of photographs of people who met their maker thorough natural causes, Mr McDowell also gathered images of people who were hanged. This photograph shows the hanging of the co-conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination in Washington, DC Burial gowns: Mr McDowell collected adverts for burial gowns posed by live models. His archive is going on display at Northwestern University, Illinois

Artifact: Librarian Benn Joseph holds up a mortician's chalk make up kit. This is one of the curios that form part of the 'Death Collection' The pictures include people that died from natural causes or who met a more grisly end by a knife or a gun. Researchers studying the history of death, its mourning rituals and businesses that profit from it soon will be able to browse artifacts amassed by an enthusiast author Stephen King once heralded as 'a writer for the ages.' RELATED ARTICLES Previous

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Next The Shining really is the scariest horror film ever: Heart... Norwegian store forced to apologise for stocking realistic... Share this article Share Mr McDowell's long career included penning more than two dozen novels, screenplays for King's novel 'Thinner' and director Tim Burton's movies 'Beetlejuice' and 'The Nightmare Before Christmas.' He also wrote episodes for macabre television shows 'Tales from the Darkside' and 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents.' Photographs: Scott Krafft holds up a daguerreotype of a dead child from the mid 18th century. Mr Krafft said they may have been the only photograph of the child that existed 'We are very removed from death today, and a lot of this stuff we see in this collection gives us a snapshot in how people have dealt with death generations ago in ways very different from today,' said Benn Joseph, a manuscript librarian at the school. 'We look at it nowadays and think this is inappropriate or gory... but when it was done, it was very much acceptable.' Mr Joseph and others spent months getting the 76-box collection - one containing a child's coffin - ready to be studied.

The archive, which officials said ultimately will go on public display, includes at least one artifact dating to the 16th century: a Spanish painting of a dead boy, his eyes closed, wearing a cloak with a ruffled collar.

WHO WAS MICHAEL MCDOWELL?

Born in Alabama in 1950

Received a BA and MA from Harvard college

Wrote his first novel Amulet in 1979

Amulet was originally meant as a screenplay

McDowell wrote under four different pseudonyms

He worked with director Tim Burton on Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas

Horror writer Stephen King praised McDowell as 'a writer for the ages.'

He died in 1999 aged 49 from AIDS-related illness

His last novel, Candles Burning, was finished by Stephen King's wife, Tabitha

The school bought the collection from McDowell's partner, director Laurence Senelick, for an undisclosed price.



McDowell's younger brother, James, said he didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the extent of the collection.



'He always had kind of a gothic horror side to him,' Mr McDowell said in an interview.



There are photographs and postcards from around the world. One, taken in 1899 in Cuba, shows a pile of skulls and bones. In another, a soldier in the Philippines poses with a man's severed head.



There also are reminders of the infamous. Photographs show the people convicted of conspiracy for Abraham Lincoln's assassination being hanged, with dozens of soldiers looking on and the US Capitol looming in the background.

Some pictures are gruesome, including one of a man whose legs are on one side of the train tracks and the rest of him in the middle. But much of the collection is devoted to the deaths of regular



Americans and how they were memorialized in the 19th and early 20th centuries.



There are, for example, dozens of photographs that families had made into postcards of their dead children. Dressed in their finest clothes, many appear to be sleeping.



Some have their eyes open, serious looks on their faces.

Hair: Mr McDowell also collected pins and brooches containing locks of dead people's hair. The badges are worn by women after the death of a loved one Macabre: Books and adverts are also among the collection. Pictured here is The Championship Book on Embalming Collection: Scott Krafft (left) curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections and manuscript librarian Benn Joseph (right) display a painting of a dead Spanish boy from the 16the century



Interest: Horror writer Michael McDowell (pictured) amassed the huge collection of curios, photographs and artifacts over three decades

There's one of a small boy, standing up, with his hands resting on a small stack of books. Joseph said it could be a bit of photographic sleight of hand and that the boy may actually be lying down but made to look like he is standing.

'With the advent of photography, regular folks could have access to that sort of thing (and) families either took the kid's body to the studio or they arranged for a visit from the photographer,' said Scott Krafft, the library curator who purchased the collection for Northwestern.



'And they may have been the only photograph of the child that existed.'



The collection also offers a glimpse into what families did after their loved ones died, at a time when they were preparing their homes to display the remains and getting ready to bring them to the cemetery.



After choosing a burial gown - worn in ads by living models - many families then looked for a headstone. Traveling headstone salesmen in the early 20th century often carried around design samples in a box about the size of one that holds chocolates.



Those paying their respects in the 19th and early 20th centuries frequently selected a tribute song for the dead to play inside the family homes, Mr Joseph said. There were some 100 popular pieces of topical sheet music, with such titles as 'She Died On Her Wedding Day.'

Beetlejuice: Mr McDowell worked on the 1988 film with Tim Burton

Boxes: Scott Krafft (right) curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections sits with librarian Benn Joseph (left). They bought the 76-box collection from Mr McDowell's partner for an undisclosed sum

Music: Sheet music written for funerals includes titles like 'She Died on her Wedding Day'. This is included in an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McDowell

Weirder still, at least by today's standards, is McDowell's collection of what were called 'spirit' photographs that include both the living and a ghostly image purportedly of a dead person hovering nearby.



In one photograph, Georgiana Houghton, a prominent 19th century medium, shakes hands with an apparition of her dead sister. She explains the photograph 'is the first manifestation of inner spiritual life.'



'I'm sure Michael, when he came across this, was totally excited,' Mr Krafft said.



While the collection isn't yet on display, members of the public can see one piece when they enter the library reading room where it is housed. That children's coffin that once belonged to McDowell now holds Halloween candy.



'I don't think it was ever used,' Mr Krafft added.

Oddity: A children's coffin that once belonged to McDowell now holds Halloween candy at the McCormick Library of Special Collections

'Spirit' photogaraphs: The Chronicles of Spirit Photography is a book of images purporting to be of living people standing next to dead relatives.







