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A book of death might seem a strange and dubious venture. A book for no one ? Or, since the subject, the editor suggests, is 'of exceptionally common concern' - a book for everyone ? "Reading this anthology", says D.J. Enright in his introduction, "I was moved to the thought that on no theme have writers shown themselves more lively." And not only professional writers, for this is "a subject on which there are no real experts" and lay voices rightly insisted on being heard alongside those of poet and novelist, scientist and philosopher, mystic and sceptic. The result is a liberal selection whose range of conjecture, opinion, and emotion, from ancient times to the present day, from East to West, is vast and in various ways inspiring. Though it has its share of fear and sadness and indeed of horror, ignorance of what others have thought is a poor kind of bliss, and there is too much evidence of courage and worldly wit, dignity and humour, drama and imagination, for the effect to be morbid or merely depressing. The anthology falls into sections that to some extent overlap, complementing or counterbalancing one another. "Definitions" modulate into "Views and attitudes", "The Hour of Death" reaches out into more specific sections on "Suicide", "Love", "War", "Children", and "Animals". Of necessity these are attended by "Mourning", "Graveyards and Funerals", "Epitaphs and Requiems", and in "Revenants" by the words of the dead, and the "Last Words", genuine or at least in character, of the dying themselves. There is also time to consider what may happen after death, for speculation on "Resurrections and Immortalities" and on diverse "Hereafters", whether intimidating or inviting. Each grouping is succintly introduced by the editor, whose choice bears out his conclusion that, since life shapes our thoughts of death, "to talk at all interestingly about death is inevitably to talk about life".

Death --- Literary collections --- -Death --- Dying --- End of life --- Life --- Terminal care --- Terminally ill --- Thanatology --- Philosophy --- Literary collections. --- -Literary collections --- Death - Literary collections