WARNING: Because the subject of the accompanying photo gallery is death, some may find a few of the photos disturbing.

Despite the fact that he was lauded by Stephen King as "the finest writer of paperback originals in America," relatively few people know the name Michael McDowell, or his connection to the iconic film "Beetlejuice." Even fewer know he was born in Enterprise, Ala.

"I like to describe Michael McDowell as kind of like the Alabama version of Stephen King," according to Benn Joseph, head of archival processing at Northwestern University, which purchased the collection after McDowell's death in 1999 at the age of 49.

McDowell was the author of more than 25 horror books, including the "Blackwater" series and "The Elementals," and numerous screenplays. In addition to penning "Beetlejuice" for director Tim Burton, McDowell wrote scripts for "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Thinner," based on a Stephen King novel, as well as several television shows. When McDowell died, King's wife, novelist Tabitha King, was asked to complete the manuscript he was writing at the time. The finished product was published as "Candles Burning" in 2006.

Perhaps McDowell's occupation as a horror writer offers some explanation for his fascination with death. Joseph said McDowell wrote the dissertation for his PhD in English from Brandeis University on the ways society deals with death and mourning. He began collecting items associated with death customs at that time, in the late 1970s, Joseph said.

The collection can be viewed in its current storage boxes at Chicago's Northwestern University and may someday go on display, Joseph said. "We've struggled with how to exhibit the more sensitive materials," he said of the collection, which includes postmortem photographs, often of children, made in the Victorian era when photography was available but still something of a luxury. Because many families did not have images of younger members, they would have a photo made when the child died as a remembrance, sometimes posing the child to look as if he were still living.

The McDowell collection also includes pieces of jewelry woven from the hair of the deceased, funeral memorabilia and an 1868 planchette used with a "spirit board" to communicate with the dead, and spirit photos, another fad of the Victorian era in which photographers created prints purporting to show people with the spirits of dead loved ones.

One of the most famous examples of "spirit" photography, taken by William H. Mumler, shows Mary Todd Lincoln with what was purported to be the spirit of Abraham Lincoln looking over her. (Public Domain)

"There are quite a few spirit photos, most with no information on them," Joseph said. "But a few are by well-known spirit photographers, like Georgiana Houghton, a medium who would conduct seances and have photographs taken of her interacting with spirits." The interaction shown in the photos was rare, he said. Typically, spirit photos showed a faded figure standing near the subject of the photo, with the most famous example being one that purports to show the figure of Abraham Lincoln standing behind Mary Todd Lincoln after his death.

Joseph said he is often asked why the university purchased the macabre collection after McDowell's death. "These materials will be useful for anyone researching American death and mourning practices, particularly the funeral industry, spiritualism, practices of ritual, emotion, or sentimentality involving death and dying, the evolution of memorial cards and funeral announcements during the 19th century," he said.

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