The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

In this volume Anton Chekhov, H. P. Lovecraft, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and many, many others bring their pens to bear on this most heartfelt of subjects.

Genius has many names.

1 - Short Stories About Death, Dying and Loss - An Introduction

2 - The Dead by James Joyce

3 - The Lagoon by Joseph Conrad

4 - The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe

5 - Living or Dead by Rabrindinath Tagore

6 - Misery by Anton Chekhov

7 - On the Gull's Road by Willa Cather

8 - The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

9 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev

10 - The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

11 - Odour of Chrysanthemums by D. H. Lawrence

12 - Laura by Saki

13 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreyev

14 - The Law of Life by Jack London

15 - The Facts in the Case of Monsieur Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe

16 - The Siege of Berlin by Alphonse Daudet

17 - The Fly by Katherine Mansfield

18 - The Boarded Window by Ambrose Bierce

19 - What the Moon Brings by H. P. Lovecraft

20 - The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

21 - Eveline by James Joyce

22 - The Life of Ma Parker by Katherine Mansfield

23 - In No Strange Land by Katharine Butler

24 - The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte

25 - The Victory by Rabindranath Tagore

26 - The Matador of Five Towns by Arnold Bennett

27 - Roger Malvin's Burial by Nathaniel Hawthorne