“God bless Captain Vere!”
These were the last words that Herman Melville muttered on his deathbed, a reference to a character from his final then-unpublished novella ‘Billy Budd, Sailor.’ The novelist and poet, most famous for his masterpiece Moby Dick, died at his residence in New York City he was 72 years old. The death certificate showed cardiac dilation / heart failure as the cause.
“If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now.”
The novelist and poet, author of Wuthering Heights, uttered these final audible words to her sister Charlotte, asking for medical help which she had previously rejected. But it was too late and Emily Brontë died later that same day in her family home at the age of 30. The cause of death was given as inflammation of the lungs which may have accelerated an existing condition such as tuberculosis.
“What’s that? Do I look strange?”
The novelist and poet uttered these final words to his wife Fanny Stevenson, before collapsing from a brain haemorrhage and dying a few hours later. Stevenson passed away at the age of 44 in the village of Vailima on the Pacific island Upolu part of the Kingdom of Samoa.
“Yes. I’m not going to die tomorrow.”
These were the final words of the famous children’s author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known by the pen name Dr Seuss. Geisel passed away from cancer at his home in the La Jolla community of San Diego at the age of 87.
“But the peasants.. how do the peasants die?”
According to some sources, the author and moral philosopher spent the last hours of his life preaching love, non-violence, and Georgism to fellow passengers on his train; and asked this final question of a station master in whose home he died. Leo Tolstoy passed away at the age of 82 from pneumonia at Astapovo railway station Russia.
“Ow, fuck!”
With family at his bedside, a nurse administered a morphine injection – the prick of the needle startled Roald Dahl and these were his actual last words. The popular children’s author passed away at the age of 74 in John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford from a rare cancer of the blood.
“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
While his literal final words were never recorded, this is a poignant quote from the science-fiction author, most well known for the futuristic Dune series of novels. Frank Herbert died of a pulmonary embolism while recovering from surgery for pancreatic cancer, he was 65 years old.
“I think it’s brilliant. I’ve fallen completely in love with it. And the promise of what’s to come once people start developing in Cocoa is awesome…”
Douglas Adams, a technology enthusiast, was excited about the then-new Mac OS X he had been trying, and wrote this update on his personal website two weeks before his death at the age of 49.
The author and environmentalist, best known as the creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, collapsed from a heart attack at a private gym and died in Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
“We should remember our dying and try to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.”
This quote is taken from the Nobel Prize winning author’s book East of Eden. John Steinbeck passed away from heart disease at his home in New York City, where his writing career had begun. He was 66 and had been a lifelong smoker.
“Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the voice of God”
This was Maya Angelou’s poignant final public tweet before her death at the age of 86. The writer, poet and civil rights activist passed away at her home in Winston-Salem from declining health including heart problems.
