10 Writers Who Suffered Strange and Unusual Deaths

Authors use their skills to explore the world around them and the people who populate it. This also applies to their death. Many fiction writers have assigned extraordinary demises to their characters, but sometimes facts are stranger than fiction. While writing my book Strange ways to die in historyI discovered that many authors themselves have died in unusual and often darkly comic ways.

It's a shame, then, that these writers weren't there to document their own strange deaths.

Related: Ten famous writers who mysteriously disappeared

10 Aeschylus

Aeschylus was one of the most celebrated playwrights of ancient Athens. His tragedies won large numbers of prizes when they entered the competitions at the city's festivals. For centuries his plays were quoted and used as models for what a worthy dramatic work should be. His death, when it came, was anything but dignified.

According to ancient historians, the last plays Aeschylus performed did not meet with the approval of the Athenian public. Annoyed that they no longer appreciated him, the great writer left Athens and moved to a Greek colony in Sicily. There he met his fate – or rather, his fate met him.

A prophecy had told Aeschylus that on a certain day a house would fall on him. So he did the obvious and decided to spend the whole day outside. If he wasn't in a house, how could anyone fall for him? A passing eagle had other ideas. Eagles in that part of Sicily carry tortoises high into the air and drop them on rocks to break them open, and this one mistook the bald head of Aeschylus for such a rock. The turtle landed on him and killed him. It was the turtle's house he should have been paying attention to.^[1]

9 Georgi Markov

Georgi Markov was walking to work in London in 1978 when he felt something poking the back of his thigh. As he turned to see what was happening, he saw that a man behind him had dropped his umbrella. The man apologized and got into a taxi that drove away. Markov continued his day and didn't think much about it. He did tell his colleagues what had happened, because there was still pain in his leg and a lump had formed there. Markov didn't know he had already been killed.

Markov was in London because he had become an anti-communist dissident under suspicion by the government in his native Bulgaria. When he did not return to Bulgaria after a stay in the West, Markov's books were removed from the shelves and he became a non-person. But not “not” enough for the Bulgarian secret service. Markov had started working with the BBC and produced more anti-communist works. They decided to silence him.

Four days after the umbrella incident, Markov was dead. During the autopsy, a small platinum ball the size of a pinhead was discovered where he had been struck. Two small holes had been drilled into it and the powerful poison ricin had been inserted into it. It appears an umbrella gun was used to put the bullet in Markov. No one was ever charged with the murder.^[2]

8 Thomas Urquhart

Sir Thomas Urquhart is one of the most extraordinary figures in Scottish literary history. He was either a genius or a madman. His works include epigrams, a new method of learning trigonometry written in gibberish, a complete history of his genealogy back to the Garden of Eden, and a constructed language that he claimed was perfect. It may be that many of these parodies were parodies, as they often included attacks on his enemies and many creditors.

Urquhart became unhinged when he fought Charles II at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, hoping to restore the monarch to the throne of England. The royal forces lost and Urquhart was captured and placed in the Tower of London. It is said that when Charles II was finally restored in 1660, the news so delighted Sir Thomas that he had a fit of laughter that proved fatal.^[3]

7 Saki

Hector Hugo Munro, better known by his pseudonym Saki, was one of the greatest short story writers of the early 20th century. His witty stories are little gems. In just a few pages he conjures up vivid images of the Edwardian period and then uses unparalleled humor to cut through all the pretenses of the time.

When World War I broke out, Munro decided to enlist in the army, despite the fact that he was too old. He even refused an appointment as an officer because he wanted to serve at the front. It was in the trenches that he met his end. There was a superstition at the time that soldiers should never light three cigarettes with the same match, as this would attract the attention of a sniper and the third man would be hit.

Coincidentally, it was a cigarette that ultimately caused his death. One night while on duty he saw a man openly smoking and barked, “Put the damn cigarette out!” at him. At that moment a sniper's bullet hit Munro, and he fell dead. Smoking is bad for your health.^[4]

6 Moliere

The 17th century French playwright Molière was so influential that the French language has been described as Molière's language. His comedies are still regularly performed on stage. Molière's plays satirized not only the society he saw around him, but also all human vices. Not everyone was a fan: the Catholic Church tried to ban his piece Tartuffe because it showed the consequences of false piety. However, the royal family was a fan of his work, so Molière was soon back on stage.

Molière's health was not good in the last years of his life; he had developed tuberculosis. But he decided to perform anyway in his latest work entitled The imaginary invalid about a hypochondriac who always thinks he is sick. Molière often seemed to mock his own literary efforts. In this play he played the role of a character who said: 'Your Molière is an insolent fellow… If I were a doctor, I would take revenge… if he got sick, I would let him die without helping him. ' I'd say, 'Go ahead, drop dead!'”

On the fourth night of the performance, Molière coughed up blood and collapsed on stage, but insisted on finishing the show. However, it became too much for him and he died a few hours later. Molière's illness was anything but imaginary.^[5]

5 Boethius

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly referred to simply as Boethius, was a writer, philosopher and politician in Rome in the early 6th century, just after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. He served under the Ostrogothic kings who at that time had taken over Italy and risen to the heights of power. Maybe too high. In politics at the time, if you fell from the top, you fell completely.

Boethius was accused of a treasonous relationship with the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople. He was arrested and thrown in jail. While there, he used his time to continue writing and producing The consolation of philosophy about how philosophers should deal with adversity. Boethius should test his theories soon.

We know that Boethius was definitively executed, but the details are recorded in different ways. Some say his head was cut off, while others say he was hanged. The most gruesome account says that a rope was tied around Boethius' skull and twisted so that it slowly tightened, pushing his eyes from his head. Some say he was then mercifully beaten to death with clubs.^[6]

4 Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol was a playwright, novelist and master of the short story. His stories such as 'The Nose', 'Diary of a Madman' and 'The Overcoat' reflect Russian society in the 19th century. Gogol was said to have had a great influence on many of the authors who came after him; one even commented: 'We all came out from under Gogol's overcoat.'

Gogol's novel Dead souls strengthened his position in the literary world, and it was only the first part of a masterpiece he planned. Unfortunately, he fell under the influence of a strict priest named Matvei Konstantinovsky, who convinced him that all works of fiction came from the devil. Gogol burned the manuscript for the second part of Dead souls.

Gogol subsequently swore off food in preparation for a religious festival, and the lack of food damaged his health. Doctors trying to help him attached leeches to his nose, put him in boiling baths and threw ice water over his head. Somehow this did not cure Gogol, and he soon died.^[7]

3 Margaret Wise Brown

The books we read as children usually stay with us for the rest of our lives. Margaret Wise Brown shaped the lives of millions of people with the hundred books she wrote, including classics like Goodbye Moon And The runaway bunny.

Sadly, Brown's life ended with dramatic flair at just 42 years old. She was on tour in Europe when she became ill with appendicitis and had to undergo surgery. While she recovered in the hospital, Brown decided to show one of the nuns who cared for her how good she was feeling. She performed a high kick with a swing. Unfortunately, this move dislodged a blood clot that traveled to her heart and killed her.^[8]

2 Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima was many things in his life. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize for his novels. But he was also a playwright, poet, actor, model and founder of a militia known as the Shield Society. It was this last role that led to Mishima's death.

The Shield Society was founded in 1968 when Mishima became alarmed by the rise of left-wing politics in Japan. He gathered a group of nationalists and anti-communists and gave them rigorous exercises to increase their strength. Strangely enough, the group's members were allowed to train alongside those of the Japan Self-Defense Force.

In 1970, Mishima and four members of the association took over the headquarters of a military base and tied up the commander. He then stepped onto a balcony and gave a speech, hoping to incite the soldiers to stage a coup that would return sweeping power to the emperor. Instead of support, the soldiers mocked him. Mishima went back inside and said to those with him, “I don't think they heard me.”

The author then committed suicide by means of seppuku, the ritual evisceration. As was traditional, Mishima had a second one who would behead him next, but three attempts to cut off Mishima's head failed and another had to intervene to complete the task.^[9]

1 Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was Lord High Chancellor under King James I in the 17th century, but is better known for his philosophical works, which paved the way for the Scientific Revolution. His idea was that theories should be tested by experiment, but it was an experiment that proved his undoing.

While driving on a snowy day, Bacon and a friend discussed how to preserve food for long periods of time. Thinking that the cold might provide a solution, Bacon rushed out and bought a chicken, which he then filled with snow. The philosopher declared that the experiment had worked wonderfully well – in a letter he dictated from his deathbed.

Bacon developed chills from his exertions, and his early biographers linked this to his death soon afterwards from pneumonia. It certainly didn't help him that he was placed in a cold and damp bed to recover from the cold. It is said that the ghost of a chicken still haunts the site of this first frozen food experiment.^[10]