The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell: A Memoir

The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell: A Memoir, by Marc Hartzman

Oliver Cromwell led the charge in the beheading of England’s King Charles I in 1649. But little did he know that his own head would soon roll. And roll and roll-for the next three hundred years across the Commonwealth.

The execution of Charles I ended the monarchy, and Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England until his own death from natural causes in 1658. His body was embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey, only to be exhumed by King Charles II three years later. The new king had restored the monarchy and wished to avenge his father’s death by hanging Cromwell and beheading him posthumously.

Now, for the first time, the memoirs of Oliver Cromwell’s embalmed head have surfaced, making it the first account of any world leader-or any human being for that matter-chronicling the afterlife. This remarkable memoir recounts its journey through the centuries, beginning with Cromwell’s decapitation and the head’s impalement on a post at Westminster Hall, where it stayed for more than twenty years before being freed by a heavy storm.

Over the centuries, the head enjoyed a series of unexpected adventures, encountering a host of bizarre and well-known characters-from its many owners, curious anatomists and misled but obsessed phrenologists to other preserved decapitated heads and impostor Cromwell heads. These escapades came to an end only after the head was donated to Cromwell’s alma mater, Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, where it was eventually buried for good in 1960.

Cover illustrated by Vi Luong.

Available in Hardcover, Paperback, and Limited Edition from Curious Publications.

Purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or contact me for a signed copy.

Praise for The Embalmed Head:

“The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell is an exceptionally well-researched and thoughtful look at an influential figure in history and how he might’ve reacted to the many events that followed his rise and fall. The idea that Cromwell’s spirit continued to observe the world through the eyes of his severed head is a fascinating one, and it provided a storytelling perspective quite unlike anything I’d read before. …

[It] is historical fiction done with grace, style, and ingenuity. (I haven’t even mentioned the absolutely stunning cover.) What an unexpected treat.”

– San Francisco Book Review

“Brilliant! Is this horror, cult fiction, science fiction, or a half-true travelogue through time as told by a dismembered head? Whatever you call it, the story is one of the most original pieces of writing this decade. One wonders about the state of Hartzman’s own head as he comes up with one story after another, all told from the recesses of a skull while in the afterlife. You will cringe one minute and laugh the next as you find his head in familiar predicaments.”

– Tim O’Brien, Ambassador of Odd for Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

“I learned so much from this book and while Cromwell is the epicenter, there is so much more to the form. Hartzman introduces us to people we would never otherwise of met, people who seem unimportant in the grand scope of several thousand years but who sparked a remarkable chain of events by picking up a desiccated head from a muddy street or seeking it out in an oddities exhibition. It is a book which, beyond disseminating facts, disseminates the sense of a man–a man who was proud and foolish, religious and rational, arrogant and loving.

Just like us.

He made a difference. He changed the world.

His head made a difference.

And if the embalmed head of Oliver Cromwell can change the world?

So can you.”

– Shiri Sondheimer, GeekMom

“Compulsively readable and genuinely fascinating, this is history from a perspective you’ve never encountered before–and may never again. A surprising delight for the morbidly curious.”

– Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses

“In 10, 20, 50 years, Marc Hartzman’s The Embalmed Head of Oliver Cromwell: A Memoir will be seen as a true artifact of its time, perhaps the truest artifact of its time. Bravo.”

– James Taylor, Publisher of James Taylor’s Shocked and Amazed! On & Off the Midway

“Delightfully wicked.”

– Fine Books & Collections

“Oliver Cromwell’s embalmed head is alive and well! Marc Hartzman takes us on a fascinating, epic journey of Cromwell’s afterlife. It’s a touching, adventurous, and historical journey that I didn’t want to end.”

– Brooks Palmer, author of Better Late Than Dead!

“Hartzman’s genius narrative, a three-century panoramic portrait of English society, is as unexpected as it is innovative. As if he’s channeled Thackeray through the mind of Terry Gilliam. His Lord Protector, though separated from brain & body, is a fully formed man. Still curious, still ambitious, still able to learn a thing or two as he leads us through backroom and bar room accompanied by his keepers who must forever defend the provenance of their beloved Lord Cromwell’s extraordinary head.”

– Todd Field

“As Cromwell is an inanimate head, he has no agency and can only witness and comment, making the entire work an endeavor in supposing what the historical personage might have thought of later events. … This book will offer food for thought to those looking for an imaginative take on the historical figure.”

– Publishers Weekly

ACCOLADES

2015 Halloween Book Festival Winner
2015 Cult of Weird Fall Reading List
2016 Communication Arts Illustration Annual
2016 World Illustration Awards Shortlist