Author Riley Knight manages to put a quirky – and certainly odd – spin on death

By creammagazine, December 11, 2025

Riley Knight’s History’s Strangest Deaths is an somewhat shocking and yet entertaining read that blends dark humour, historical oddity, and sharp storytelling. Known for his engaging podcast presentation style, Knight brings the same energetic ‘voice’ to this collection of bizarre but true stories, each centered around the unusual, ironic, or downright absurd ways people throughout history have met their end. While the subject matter could easily slip into mere shock value, Knight approaches each tale with a balance of respect, wit, and curiosity that elevates the book beyond a simple catalog of misfortune.

What makes the book especially enjoyable is Knight’s narrative tone — conversational, clever, and just self-aware enough to acknowledge the strangeness of the material without diminishing its archival significance.

The deaths themselves range from comical mishaps to tragic ironies, but the real pleasure comes from the context Knight provides: the cultural quirks, human follies, and historical circumstances that make each incident more than just an oddity.

From an ancient Chinese duke falling into a toilet to an entire ship’s worth of English nobles (300 of them) all passing away from exposure to excrement, and (moving away from the latrine) and a Swedish king who died from too much dessert to a Viking raider bitten by a severed head, things have gotten pretty crazy in the death department in the past.

Thebook’s pace is brisk, with each chapter offering a compact but substantial-enough dive into a different story, making the book perfect for casual reading. Like all good anthologies of sorts, it can be consumed in short bursts or devoured in a single sitting.

Readers looking for deep academic analysis might find the book lighter than expected, but that’s clearly not the point. What it does do is entertain, surprise and spark curiosity about the countless strange corners of history.
Michael Mastess

‘History’s Strangest Deaths’ is out through Allen & Unwin, RRP $29.99.