tragedy
Stories that end the way you hoped they wouldn't.
I Have Not The Time
In prison, drunk for the first time, he told his cellmates he would die in a duel over a woman. Nine months later, a woman wrote him a letter.
The Man Who Was Grimaldi
What does it cost a man to teach the world how to fall down for a living?
The Necessary Jew
A terrified little man taught crafts to bored teenagers in Drohobycz and wrote two of the strangest books of the twentieth century, until the SS officer next door decided he wanted a Jew of his own.
The Empress and the File
What does a 19th-century empress do in a room called the Toilette- und Turnzimmer?
The Bucket List
A college dropout found him in four days with a bucket list.
The General Who Conquered an Empire and Then Had to Give It Back
He took the fortress that defeated Napoleon, routed the Ottoman army, and marched to within a hundred miles of Constantinople — and then his father told him to wait.
The Doctor Who Was Right
He died of the same infection, in the same place on his body, that he'd spent his life trying to prevent.
The Man Who Ate Everything Else
The French army once used a man who could swallow live puppies whole as a courier, hiding documents in his stomach.