If you've ever wondered about people you encounter, here's the explanation: "In every thousand people who are living on this earth, not more than one is alive."  From The Art of Being Alive by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1914.

Who wants a free coffin?  From Le Rire, 1897.

From The Flying Burgermaster by Frances Parker, 1832.

From Die Muskete, 1915.

"It was then that I became a corpse."  From By the Eternal by Opie Read, 1906.

"You don't know how delightful it is to be dead.  I never enjoyed myself so much."  From London Magazine, 1902.

From English Illustrated, 1898.

From Die Muskete, 1910.

"'Great God!' he said; 'the dead come to life, then."  From Pearson's, 1898.

The Dead Have Never Died by Edward C. Randall, 1917.

"'Magnificent!' said Cormac, 'magnificent!'"  From Pearson's, 1900.

You've heard of "zombie Jesus," but some deceased bishops are also at large.  By Richard Henry Clarke, 1872.

An illustration by Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp for Eigen Haard, 1896.

A coffin for a walking skeleton.  From Die Muskete, 1919.

Thanks to author W. D. Clarke for calling us "encyclopedic."

Speaking of walking encyclopedias, a few years ago we noted how we too often forget that even zombies were once better read than dead.  A crucial example is an article in a 1905 issue of Windsor magazine, in which the first example of a "walking encyclopaedia" is technically deceased.  Over the years, ravenousness for knowledge, even from beyond the grave, became equated with a base hunger for brains.  Alas, it's all indicative of the "dumbing down" of popular culture.