Body snatching  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Body snatching is the secret disinterment of corpses from graveyards. A common purpose of body snatching is to sell the corpses for dissection or anatomy lectures in medical schools. Those who practised body snatching were often called "resurrectionists" or "resurrection-men." A related act is grave robbery, uncovering a tomb or crypt to steal artifacts or personal effects rather than corpses.

Body snatching in popular culture

In literature

• A famous short story by Robert Louis Stevenson is The Body Snatcher, with a film adaptation starring Boris Karloff.
• Jerry Cruncher, a character from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, works at night as a "resurrection man".
• H. P. Lovecraft wrote of body snatchers in his novels The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and Herbert West–Reanimator.
• Other recent depictions of the trade include The Resurrectionist by James Bradley, The Giant O'Brien by Hilary Mantel, An Acquaintance with Darkness by and Ann Rinaldi, The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen, and Fleshmarket by Nicola Morgan.
• James McGee's Resurrectionist centres on his main protagonist, James Hawkwood, in hunt of a group of resurrectionists who illegally smuggle bodies for medical school. Central to the theme of the novel, McGee explores the world of the resurrectionists and their doings.
• In Jonathan L. Howards novel Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, the eponymous protagonist practices body snatching.

In music

• The Pet Shop Boys's song The Resurrectionist appeared as a bonus track on their first single from their 2006 album Fundamental, I'm with stupid. The track is inspired by the book The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-Robbery in 1830s London by Sarah Wise. (See London Burkers.)
• The second track on Radiohead's 2007 album In Rainbows is titled "Bodysnatchers".
• A song by the band Leathermouth is called Bodysnatchers Forever.
• Horrorpunk bands The Misfits, Creature Feature and Wednesday 13 have songs about grave-robbing, for example "Dig up Her Bones", "Grave Robber at Large" and "Happily Ever Cadaver", respectively.

In film and television

• In the film Corridors of Blood, Christopher Lee plays a character called "Resurrection Joe".
• In Mel Brooks' film Young Frankenstein, Fredrick Frankenstein and Igor dig up a body to attempt to bring it back to life.
• On the television show House a group of his medical students take a body from a grave for medical purposes.
• In the film The Doctor and the Devils, Timothy Dalton plays an anatomist who runs Edinburgh's School of Anatomy in the 19th century.
• In the film I Sell the Dead, Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden play two men who make a living stealing and selling corpses.

See also

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Grave robbery
• History of medicine
• History of anatomy
• Thomas Sewall
• Night Doctors