Last Words: The Source Notes
Saturday, February 26, 2005
You might think that all the famous people's last words I know went into Looking for Alaska. But you'd be vastly underestimating my dorkiness. In point of fact, many of my favorite famous last words didn't appear in the book at all, so instead they're going to appear here.
If you also happen to be a last words dork, the best book about last words is Laura Ward's Famous Last Words, which was published just after Looking for Alaska was finished. That's unfortunate, because it would have come in handy. And the best web site (other than this one, I mean) comes from, of all places, Geocities. This site is a really well-annotated collection of dying declarations, although occasionally they are wrong. (Like, for instance, I'm pretty sure they're wrong about William McKinley.)
Occasionally someone will accuse me of making up the last words in the book, which I did not do, and here is proof in the form of source notes:
Robert E. Lee
With regard to quotations and also with regard to pears, there's one name you can always trust: Bartlett. Lee's last words are in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
Meriwether Lewis
I came across these randomly in the book Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jameson. Incidentally, it's an excellent book. (p.224.)
Millard Filmore
I'm a big fan of Cecil Adams, who writes the extremely funny "Straight Dope" column in newspapers worldwide. The Straight Dope also comes in book form, where Filmore's last words appear on p.108.
Ulysses S Grant
That riveting tome that is Presidential Trivia (look for Grant's last words on p.151).
William McKinley
Now, admittedly, McKinley's last words are usually recorded as "His will not ours be done," but A. those are lame, and B. many sources agree with me, including Paul Boller's Presidential Anecdotes.
Che Guevera
You can find these in all kinds of books about Che, including Che: A Revolutionary Life.
John Sedgwick
Possibly the last words I've seen in the most places, at least for a person who wasn't famous except insofar as he died famously. Among many many others: Death: The Great Mystery of Life, by Herbie Brennan, p.40.
Henry Ward Beecher
Bartlett!
Dylan Thomas
All over the place (even though they might not have been his last words, just the last anyone ever heard him say). I mean, they're so famous that some guy wrote a book called "Eighteen Straight Whiskeys."
Eugene O'Neill
B-B-B-B-BARTLETT!
Thomas Edison
This quote is cited in a ton of those gooey spiritual self-help books. But anyway, I first came across it in James D. Newton's Uncommon Friends (p.32).
Albert Sidney Johnston
This is all over the web and civil war histories, but you know you can trust it because it appears in Shelby Foote's sprawling and brilliant 3-volume history of the Civil War. I suspect it is in either Volume 1 or 2, since I never read Volume 3 (from what I've heard, however, the South loses).
Edgar Allen Poe
I found these out through googling, but then later, I confirmed them in The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I have to coness: I didn't read the complete poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I read only the introduction, which is where his last words are found.
Grover Cleveland
The aforementioned Ernie Couch's Presidential Trivia, p.161.
James Dean
All over the web, notable at the always well-sourced and generally awesome anecdotage.com.
Princess Di
I read these in the newspaper after she died.
Other quotes in the book:
Auden's "You shall love your crooked neighbor / With your crooked heart" is from the second-to-last stanza of "As I Walked Out One Evening," which was published in 1937 and can now be read in Auden's Collected Poems.
Forgive me for not including the diacritics, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in His Labyrinth was first published in English by Knopf in 1990.
If you also happen to be a last words dork, the best book about last words is Laura Ward's Famous Last Words, which was published just after Looking for Alaska was finished. That's unfortunate, because it would have come in handy. And the best web site (other than this one, I mean) comes from, of all places, Geocities. This site is a really well-annotated collection of dying declarations, although occasionally they are wrong. (Like, for instance, I'm pretty sure they're wrong about William McKinley.)
Occasionally someone will accuse me of making up the last words in the book, which I did not do, and here is proof in the form of source notes:
Robert E. Lee
With regard to quotations and also with regard to pears, there's one name you can always trust: Bartlett. Lee's last words are in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.
Meriwether Lewis
I came across these randomly in the book Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide, by Kay Redfield Jameson. Incidentally, it's an excellent book. (p.224.)
Millard Filmore
I'm a big fan of Cecil Adams, who writes the extremely funny "Straight Dope" column in newspapers worldwide. The Straight Dope also comes in book form, where Filmore's last words appear on p.108.
Ulysses S Grant
That riveting tome that is Presidential Trivia (look for Grant's last words on p.151).
William McKinley
Now, admittedly, McKinley's last words are usually recorded as "His will not ours be done," but A. those are lame, and B. many sources agree with me, including Paul Boller's Presidential Anecdotes.
Che Guevera
You can find these in all kinds of books about Che, including Che: A Revolutionary Life.
John Sedgwick
Possibly the last words I've seen in the most places, at least for a person who wasn't famous except insofar as he died famously. Among many many others: Death: The Great Mystery of Life, by Herbie Brennan, p.40.
Henry Ward Beecher
Bartlett!
Dylan Thomas
All over the place (even though they might not have been his last words, just the last anyone ever heard him say). I mean, they're so famous that some guy wrote a book called "Eighteen Straight Whiskeys."
Eugene O'Neill
B-B-B-B-BARTLETT!
Thomas Edison
This quote is cited in a ton of those gooey spiritual self-help books. But anyway, I first came across it in James D. Newton's Uncommon Friends (p.32).
Albert Sidney Johnston
This is all over the web and civil war histories, but you know you can trust it because it appears in Shelby Foote's sprawling and brilliant 3-volume history of the Civil War. I suspect it is in either Volume 1 or 2, since I never read Volume 3 (from what I've heard, however, the South loses).
Edgar Allen Poe
I found these out through googling, but then later, I confirmed them in The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I have to coness: I didn't read the complete poetry of Edgar Allen Poe. I read only the introduction, which is where his last words are found.
Grover Cleveland
The aforementioned Ernie Couch's Presidential Trivia, p.161.
James Dean
All over the web, notable at the always well-sourced and generally awesome anecdotage.com.
Princess Di
I read these in the newspaper after she died.
Other quotes in the book:
Auden's "You shall love your crooked neighbor / With your crooked heart" is from the second-to-last stanza of "As I Walked Out One Evening," which was published in 1937 and can now be read in Auden's Collected Poems.
Forgive me for not including the diacritics, but Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The General in His Labyrinth was first published in English by Knopf in 1990.
