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.

An illustration from an 1890 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Death and his brother Sleep."

"The Demon Alps": an illustration from an 1890 issue of Punch magazine.

John Leech sketched this for a tale about a clown who had to crack jokes in a circus while his wife was in her dying agonies after fatally missing her footing on a leap from a standing position on horseback; the rip in the hoop is meant to suggest the initial letter I of the story.  From Cornhill magazine, 1864.

An illustration from a 1916 issue of Puck magazine.

An illustration from a 1917 issue of Puck magazine.

An illustration from an 1880 issue of Punch magazine.

Here's a precursor to a stretch portrait at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion: an illustration from an 1863 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "Death on the Rope."

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Punch magazine.

An illustration from an 1878 issue of Punch magazine.  The caption reads: "There and (not) back!"

An illustration from an 1886 issue of Punch magazine.

"So it's 2 pm and you've got the dreaded 2 o'clock feeling." —The Grave Radio

This illustration of the dreaded 2 o'clock feeling is from Cartoons magazine, 1916.

An illustration from a 1903 issue of Saturday Evening Post.

Dedicated to the Master of Masks, Jeff McBride.