Reading Order
Burial Rites Reading Order
Hannah Kent's Burial Rites (2013) is a standalone debut novel based on the true story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last person to be executed in Iceland, condemned in 1828 for the murder of two men. Awaiting execution in the north of Iceland during the winter of 1829, Agnes is billeted with a farming family and forms an unexpected relationship with the young assistant reverend assigned to prepare her soul. One of the most celebrated debut novels of the decade.
Where to start
Burial Rites
Complete Burial Rites Book List
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Burial Rites
Hannah Kent·2013·The complete novel. Entirely standalone. - Buy
The Good People
OptionalHannah Kent·2016·In 1825 rural Ireland, a widow and a woman known as a 'fairy doctor' try to rid a disabled child of what the community believes to be a changeling — Kent's second novel is more supernatural in atmosphere than Burial Rites and equally rooted in a specific historical community's beliefs and fears. - Buy
Alias Grace
OptionalMargaret Atwood·1996·Grace Marks, convicted of murder in 1843 Canada, tells her story to the doctor hired to assess her mental state — the obvious companion to Burial Rites: another historical novel about a woman convicted of murder whose guilt is ambiguous, whose testimony is controlled by men, and whose inner life resists the official narrative. - Buy
The Last Execution
OptionalJesper Wung-Sung·2014·A Danish boy awaits execution at the age of fourteen, the last person to be publicly executed in Denmark — a shorter companion novel to Burial Rites for readers interested in the literary territory of historical execution narratives.
Burial Rites — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Burial Rites based on a true story?
Yes. Agnes Magnúsdóttir was a real person, and the broad outlines of her story — her conviction for the murders of Natan Ketilsson and Pétur Jónsson in 1828, her billeting with the family of district officer Jón Jónsson while she awaited execution, the young Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson (Toti) who was assigned to prepare her soul, and her execution on January 12, 1830 — are documented in historical records. Kent researched the case extensively during her time as an exchange student in Iceland, and the novel draws on contemporary accounts, letters, and legal documents. Where the record is silent — which is most of Agnes's inner life — Kent invented. She has written about the experience of working with historical materials that preserve the official view of a woman whose own perspective was never recorded, and about the ethical responsibility of giving fictional voice to someone who cannot contest your interpretation.
What is the significance of the Icelandic setting in Burial Rites?
The Icelandic landscape in Burial Rites is not background but atmosphere: the darkness, the cold, the isolation of the north during the months Agnes spends waiting for spring and her execution are rendered with extraordinary precision. Kent researched the landscape directly and spent time in the region where the events took place. The Icelandic tradition of household service — the system under which Agnes and other poor women moved from farm to farm, utterly dependent on the goodwill of their employers — shapes the novel's understanding of why Agnes was where she was and what options she had. The darkness and cold also function emotionally: the winter that Agnes waits through is the winter of her life, and the gradual lengthening of days that precedes her execution carries an irony that the landscape itself seems to provide. The novel is one of the finest examples of literary fiction in which setting is inseparable from meaning.
Who are the characters Agnes is billeted with, and how do they respond to her?
Agnes is billeted with the family of the district officer Jón Jónsson: his wife Margrét, their daughters Steina and Lauga, and the farmhand Kristján. The family's response to Agnes is the novel's central dynamic. Initially hostile and frightened (the district officer's wife did not want her, and the daughters are curious and repelled in equal measure), the family members gradually respond to Agnes as a person rather than a condemned murderer, though the progress is uneven: Margrét comes to a grudging respect; Lauga maintains her hostility; Steina becomes genuinely friendly. The young Reverend Toti, assigned to prepare Agnes's soul for execution, becomes her most important interlocutor — she tells him her story in a way she tells no one else, and his inadequacy for the task (he is very young and has no experience of ministering to the condemned) gradually gives way to genuine compassion. The novel is about what happens when strangers are forced into proximity with a person the community has defined as a monster.
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