The lives of many historical figures, great and small, however significant or otherwise they may have been, were transcended and to a certain extent illuminated by the circumstances of their death.

Do the great and powerful get the death they deserved? Not always, but fairly often. In any case, a death that suits them, whatever category it falls into: of so-called natural causes, or by accident, suicide, duel, combat, assassination, execution or other.

This is the surprising stroll through the centuries that Claude Quétel leads us on: the last day, the last hour of famous people from history, literature and arts, stage and screen, and song. And even some perfectly obscure people who only became famous for their death.

He describes some fifty or more little known last days, starting with the incredible Cadaver Synod of 897 for which the corpse of Pope Formosus, who had been dead for nearly a year, was exhumed in order for the late pope to be tried. What were the circumstances of Guy de Maupassant’s and Camille Claudel’s natural deaths? Of Émile Zola’s and General Patton’s fatal accidents? Emperor Nero’s and Hermann Göring’s suicides? Lord Nelson’s and Marshall Lannes’deaths in battle? Of Lacenaire’s and Eichmann’s executions? Sitting Bull’s and Gandhi’s assassinations?

With his renowned talent for story-telling, Claude Quétel recounts some 50 deaths from Antiquity to the present day, which deserve to be told, however well or little-known their main character is.