The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0084 Monday, 15 January 2001
From: Asami Nakayama <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Sunday, 14 Jan 2001 11:54:33 +0900
Subject: Re: Henry VIII
In Margaret George's novel, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VIII, Henry's
body is said to have emitted red liquid after it had been placed in the
coffin. The narrator doesn't say the liquid was blood. He just says it
was mysterious and weird. It is a fiction, but is based on an enormous
amount of research by the author. If there had been such a catching
episode as the exploding body, Ms George wouldn't have failed to include
it in her novel. Anyway, the body was embalmed, so it couldn't have been
so much decomposed that it eventually exploded!
Asami Nakayama
P.S. I didn't know Oscar Wilde exploded in his casket <Emma French. Is
there a tradition of tales about exploding bodies?