Disclaimer: This post does not encourage suicide or glorify suicidal tendencies. I write this due to interest in the lives, and deaths, of great writers and all comments are welcome.
I love to read and steemit is fast becoming a goldmine for people who love to read. The past five days I had no access to my account, as mine's was one of the few "compromised" accounts, so I killed time reading the countless blog's which people put up on here.
But I have read famous authors too. And though I like their writings, I had no idea about their life, or their death! And especially about those whose deaths were self-inflicted, and was declared a suicide.
So I did some research and here I document the death of a few of my favorite Authors. Photos I have used are from Wikimedia/Wikipedia
1.VIRGINIA WOOLF
One of the greatest authors of our times, Virginia Woolf's writings made people think and influenced world literature. But her death was tragic. She took her own life on the 28th of March, 1941. She drowned herself by filling her pockets with stones and walked into a river close to her home. They did not find her body till the 18th of April, 1941, almost three weeks later! But more talked about then, was the suicide note she had left for her husband, which I quote below.
"Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that—everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V"
2. ERNEST HEMINGWAY
His alcoholism was common knowledge, as was the fact that Earnest Hemingway suffered grievous injuries in two plane crashes. But these did not kill him. He died due to a bullet which was explained at the time as accidental, that he had shot himself with his favorite shot-gun. His father, his brother, his sister and others in his family had committed suicide, and this seemed to run in the family. But it was around five years after his death that his wife, Mary, admitted during a press interview, that he had indeed killed himself.
3. RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA
A prolific writer of short stories, he was a visionary who believed literature had the power to bring together western and Asian cultures. He had a troubled and dysfunctional childhood, and had started suffering from hallucinations and nervousness in his thirties. He died on the 24th of July, 1927, when he overdosed on sleeping pills known as barbital, at the age of 35.
4. SYLVIA PLATH
A renowned author, poet and a short story writer, Sylvia Plath suffered from acute depression, and was also schizophrenic. She had tried to kill herself earlier by overdosing on pills, and once even drove off the road and into a river. She survived that, but when the cops questioned her, she admitted that she was trying to take her life. But her end was horrific way when, in 1963 at the age of 30, she stuck her head into a gas oven and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Having two small children in the house, she had also taken the precaution to seal the doors to the kids room with wet towels!