Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch.

But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds. We never really know the reason or motivation but sometimes one final dreadful way out is the solution.

In this volume our authors, including Amy Levy, Willa Cather, Honore de Balzac, O. Henry, Franz Kafka and a wealth of others, explore stories that help us to understand and recognise a tragic circumstance.

1 - Short Stories About Suicide - An Introduction

2 - Suicides by Guy de Maupassant

3 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostovesky

4 - A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka

5 - The Legacy by Virginia Woolf

6 - The Informer by Joseph Conrad

7 - Claude Gueux by Victor Hugo

8 - The Furnished Room by O. Henry

9 - The Mourner by Mary Shelley

10 - The Victory by Rabindranath Tagore

11 - A Passion in the Desert by Honore De Balzac

12 - An Imaginative Woman by Thomas Hardy

13 - An Egyptian Cigarette by Kate Chopin

14 - Volodya by Anton Chekhov

15 - Paul's Case by Willa Cather

16 - A Slav Soul by Alexander Kuprin

17 - Cohen of Trinity by Amy Levy

18 - The Story of A Conscience by Ambrose Bierce

19 - The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

20 - Blessed Are the Meek by Mary Webb

21 - The Crystal Man by Edward Page Mitchell

22 - The End of a Show by Barry Pain

23 - An Outcast of the People by Bithia Mary Croker

24 - A Responsibility by Henry Harland

25 - When Spirits Steal by Philippa Forest

26 - The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers

27 - The Quadroons by Lydia Maria Child

28 - Sokratics in the Strand by Amy Levy

29 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka