featured throwback

books fatal to their authors

PH Ditchfield, 1895

Books Fatal to their Authors, written by one PH Ditchfield and published in 1895, delves into books which caused their authors a lot of heartache. Some even died because they wrote these books, their ideas clashing against wonky theology, terrified and powerful critics, and you know, strange human historical stuff like the Spanish Inquisition.

While compiling Volume 9, we noticed our author and artist contributors interrogating a sense of vague, unsettling danger. (Check out our print cover and pre-order! Kismet, thanks to current and former contributor, Sherry Shahan.)

This feeling of lurking unknown ambiguous danger makes sense to us. We can relate.

We don’t like saying things like “Never before have things been so messy and scary”. We acknowledge historical evidence like, you know, the Spanish Inquisition, that says it isn’t necessarily true. But it certainly feels like things have never before been so messy and scary. A lot is going on in the world. A lot of it is not great. A lot of it is imbued with freaky uncertainty. (We’re looking at y’all, ChatGPT and global warming!)

But because we’re the ones alive right now, our feelings are legitimate, we think, so let’s just say it.

Never before has the world seemed so messy and scary.

We hope Volume 9’s Featured Throwback helps to put it all in perspective, though. Despite everything, we’re less likely to be killed today for writing and making art. So keep doing it, please. And keep sending it our way!

We love you.

You can peruse Books Fatal to their Authors below. We’ve made it clickable, so if you move past the preface (a fun read), you can click on the chapter titles to go to that chapter. Find the original document at the Public Domain Review.

We wanted to provide links to Wikipedia entries of the “Big List” you’ll find below, but we work full-time. Maybe we will find some time to do that before the print version of Volume 9 comes out, which will be soon. PRE-ORDER TODAY! :)

Dead Men Writing: The big list