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

After the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular spot in the world to commit suicide is Aokigahara Forest at the foot of Mount Fuji. Signs posted among the trees read: YOUR LIFE IS A PRECIOUS GIFT FROM YOUR PARENTS AND PLEASE CONSULT THE POLICE BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO DIE! Since the 1950s, more than five hundred people have killed themselves there, most by hanging.

1390 | Japan

Walking in Circles

The dangers of thinking too much.More

c. 710 | Kyushu

Lost Child

Yamanoue no Okura on the death of his son.More

1849 | Filey

Gone Like Dreams

Charlotte Brontë grieves for her brother and sisters.More

Charts & Graphs

How They Went

Match the deceased with cause of death.

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Black and white photograph of Italian writer and chemist Primo Levi.

Black and white image of Greek biographer and writer Plutarch.

Joseph Heller

Black and white image of Japanese haiku poet Kobayashi Issa.

Painted portrait of English physician and author Thomas Browne.

Portrait bust of Greek dramatist Aeschylus.

Sculpture bust of Greek dramatist Euripides.

What is death? A scary mask. Take it off—see, it doesn’t bite.

—Epictetus, c. 110

Painted portrait of Scottish philosopher David Hume.

Color photograph of American physician Jack Kevorkian.

David Hume & Jack Kevorkian

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