The Dead Toreador, by Édouard Manet, c. 1864. National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

The Dead Toreador, by Édouard Manet, c. 1864. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Death

Volume VI, Number 4 | fall 2013

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"The Antiquary's Last Will and Testament" from The English Dance of Death, by Thomas Rowlandson, 1814.

Preamble

Memento Mori

By Lewis H. Lapham

Learning how to die, as Michel de Montaigne once rightly said, is the unlearning of how to be a slave.

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The Afternoon Meal, by Luis Meléndez, c. 1772

Last Meals

By Brent Cunningham

The choice of the final meal contains a curious paradox: why mark the end of a life with the stuff that fuels it?

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Map

Departures

A million ways to die.

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Miscellany

Slaves in ancient China during the Zhou dynasty were sometimes buried alive with their recently departed masters in order that they might continue to serve them in the afterlife.

c. 1360 | Shiraz

The Caged Bird Sings

Hafez seeks a heavenly home.More

c. 2001 | Knoxville

Examining the Cadavers

Mary Roach visits a decay facility.More

1854 | London

Morbid Diary

John Stuart Mill anticipates the end.More

Charts & Graphs

How They Went

Match the deceased with cause of death.

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Color photograph of American poet and critic Paul Zweig.

Black and white print of English politician, essayist, and historian Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Color image of English novelist Charlotte Brontë with book in hand.

Photograph of American editor Brent Cunningham.

Black and white photograph of Russian author Leo Tolstoy.

Photograph of President Abraham Lincoln sitting in a chair.

Painted portrait of Scottish philosopher David Hume.

Black and white photograph of Italian novelist Italo Svevo.

Can we not live without pleasure, who cannot but with pleasure die?

—Tertullian, c. 215

Painted portrait of English physician and author Thomas Browne.

Color photograph of American poet and critic Paul Zweig.

Thomas Browne & Paul Zweig

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