The Hour of Our Death [antikvár]

ForewordThis is not an introduction. The real introduction to this book was published in 1975 in my Essais sur I'histoire de la mort. In that little essay I explained why I had chosen this subject, what was my original point of departure, how I was later drawn to expand my area of investigation both backward and forward in time, and some of the problems that attended an undertaking of such magnitude. I need not repeat those remarks here, for they have been reprinted as the preface to this edition.I entitled this premature introduction "The Story of a Book That Never Ends," and it was the present volume to which I referred. At that time1974the end was so far from sight that I had decided to publish the preliminary outline without further delay. Little did 1 realize that a stroke of good fortune would soon permit me to accelerate my pace and finish the book sooner than 1 had hoped. In January 1976, thanks to the good offices of my friend Orest Ranum, I received a six-month grant to work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. During this period I was able to devote all my time and energy to my subject and thus finish, at last, a book that I had been working on for almost fifteen years.This book owes a great debt to friends and colleagues who became interested in my research and sent me documentation (information about sites, monuments, inscriptions, and texts), references, and newspaper clippings. I would like to express my gratitude to the director of the Smithsonian Institution, James Billington; to Miles, or Mmes. N. de La Blanchar-diére, N. Bowker, N. Castan, L. Collodi, M. Czapska, A. Fleury, H. Haberman, C. Hannaway, J.-B. Holt, D. Schnaper, S. Strazewska, and M. Wolff-Terpoine.Also, to Messrs. G. Adelman, J. Adhemar, S. Bonnet, P.-H. Butler,