When Queen Victoria died in 1901, the Spectator judged that people felt 'a distinct and unexpected diminution in their faith in the stability of things'. This engaging new study explores the impact of the deaths of 'the Great' in the United Kingdom. It concentrates on the period between the 1840s and the First World War, but sets it within a longer perspective from the seventeenth century to the end of the twentieth. Deaths in old age seemed to mark the ends of eras; premature deaths pointed up the fragility and poignancy of human life; 'heroic' deaths became potent symbols of national and spiritual purpose. Dr Wolffe's analysis widens our understanding of the social and cultural responses to death, from the personal to the national. And he presents intriguing insights into both the dynamics of institutional and popular religion, and the development and expression of local and national consciousness.