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The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides:Dead Letters

The Dedalus Book of Literary Suicides:Dead Letters

Author: Gary Lachman
Cover design: David Bird

Writers have been killing themselves for centuries. From Petronius in ancient Rome to the 20th Century Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, writers, more than any other kind of artist, have taken their own lives in an extraordinary number of ways. With bullets, poison, drugs and swords, poets, playwrights, novelists and philosophers have sent themselves off into the big sleep. Others, one step shy of that last exit, have made great literature about the urge to self-destruction.

Although much has been written about the link between writing and suicide, no single explanation covers all the cases. Metaphysical beliefs, political ideals, aesthetic theory, and sheer narcissism have been some of the triggers for the plunge into annihilation.

For the first time, Gary Lachman investigates the many links between self-death and the written word, bringing together an unusual gallery of literary greats including Goethe, Hermann Hesse, Dostoyevsky, Andre Breton, Thomas Chatterton, Walter Benjamin, Arthur Koestler, Witkacy, Mayakovsky and a host of other fatal characters.

Table of Contents
1. A Taxonomy of Suicide, 2.The Existential Suicide, 3.The Romantic Suicide,4.The Surreal Suicide,5.The Political Suicide,6.The Manic-Depressive Suide,7.Ten Suicides,8.A Suicidal Miscellany.

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RRP: £9.99
No. of pages: 321
Publication date: 20 March, 2008
Re-print date: unspecified
Catalogue/ISBN no: 978 1 903517 66 6

Dedalus World Rights

Buy from: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

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