Death tips his hat to his bleed-through, from The Tomahawk (June 1870).

An illustration from The Sociable Ghost by Olive Harper (1903).  The caption reads: "The dance and cake walk."

An illustration from The Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott (1887).

An illustration from Peter Penniless Gamekeeper and Gentleman by George Christopher Davies (1884).

An illustration from an 1885 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.

An illustration from an 1874 issue of The Quiver magazine.  The caption reads: "The future mocks the present."

"Move On!": an illustration from The Tomahawk (November 2, 1867).

"The Tourist's Guide!": an illustration from The Tomahawk, (September 14, 1867).

A precursor to the Death By Lemon cake recipe.  An illustration from an 1879 issue of Punch magazine.

The serpents are emblazoned with death, destruction, murder, mischief, madness, brutality, robbery, and blasphemy. From The Working Man's Friend and Family Instructor (1833).  The caption reads: "Will you take a glass?"

An illustration from The Man Who Was Dead by Arthur Williams Marchmont (1907).  The caption reads: "It was as though I were gazing on myself, dead!"

An illustration from The Autobiography of a Man O' War's Bell by C. R. Low (1875).  The caption reads: "I stepped forward, eagerly seized a paper, when oh, horror! there appeared before my eyes, as I hastily opened the slip, the single word—Death!"

"Flying from death to death": an illustration from Benita: An African Romance by Henry Rider Haggard (1906).

An illustration from The Man Who Was Dead by Arthur Williams Marchmont (1907).  The caption reads: "It was a sweet memory to take into the land where nothing counts."

Nearly seventy years before Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, we find "Death on the rail" in Mrs. Grundy, 1865.

If it's the last dance, let it be with a goat.  From an 1870 issue of London Society Illustrated magazine.

"How happy he who crowns, in shades like these." —Oliver Goldsmith

The illustration appears in Punch, 1892.