I came across the word taphophobia in a novel I was reading – I think it was The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones. Looking the word up I discovered it’s a fear of being buried alive.
According to Wikipedia it was not an uncommon fear before the era of modern medicine. In 1905, the English reformer William Tebb collected accounts of premature burial. He found 219 cases of near live burial, 149 actual live burials, 10 cases of live dissection and 2 cases of awakening while being embalmed. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taphophobia)
The fear of premature burial led to the invention of many safety devices which could be incorporated into coffins. Most consisted of some type of device for communication to the outside world such as a cord attached to a bell that the interred person could ring should they revive after the burial. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_coffin)
There’s an interesting but tragic case of premature burial concerning a woman Alice Blunden who died in 1674. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Blunden)
Edgar Allan Poe wrote several short stories around the subject, including The Premature Burial and The Fall of the House of Usher. Around my late teens I read a collection of his stories (probably bought at the long-gone Paperback Parade in Southampton!).
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