{"product_id":"9781510700611","title":"Final Chapters: How Famous Authors Died","description":"\u003cb\u003e“Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case.” –William Saroyan, Pulitzer Prize–winning author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFamous authors, like everybody else, know that one day they will die. \u003ci\u003eFinal Chapters\u003c\/i\u003e tells the fascinating stories of more than one hundred writers’ encounters with death—and their attitudes toward the Grim Reaper: fear, uncertainty, or acceptance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrancis Bacon wrote, “It is as natural to die as to be born,” while Socrates told the judges who condemned him, “And now we go our ways, I to die and you to live. Which is better is known to God alone.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeath often came in startling ways for these well-known writers. The playwright Aeschylus was conked by a turtle falling from the sky. Christopher Marlowe was stabbed in a barroom brawl. Molière collapsed while playing the role of a hypochondriac in one of his plays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdgar Allan Poe was found semicomatose in someone else’s clothes shortly before he died. Sherwood Anderson was felled by a toothpick in a martini. Did Dylan Thomas really die of eighteen straight whiskeys? And was it a bottle cap or murder that did in Tennessee Williams?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf these authors have lessons for us, the best may be that of Marcus Aurelius: “Death smiles at us all; all we can do is smile back.”","brand":"Skyhorse Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47184254337264,"sku":"9781510700611","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781510700611_p0.jpg?v=1763726812","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781510700611","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}