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Index
Cover Page
Riddance
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Editor’s Introduction
1 The Final Dispatch: “Borne on racing white-streaked black.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “The Headmistress’s tiny, tinny voice has fallen silent.”
Readings: “My Childhood”
Letters to Dead Authors, #1: Melville. “You will not have heard of me . . .”
2 The Final Dispatch: “Someone is missing, a child is missing, calamity . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “Another pause. The room is quiet, though today’s events have left their spoor . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” How I Conceived the Plan to Visit the Vocational School; On the Architecture of the Vocational School
Letters to Dead Authors, #2: Melville. “It has come to my attention that you are dead.”
3 The Final Dispatch: “[Extended static, several words indistinct] . . . someone is missing . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “‘Wake up!’ The Intake Coordinator, if that was what she was . . .”
Readings: from Principles of Necrophysics: “The Mechanics of Channeling the Dead”
Letters to Dead Authors, #3: Brontë (Charlotte). “I am—but I shall not introduce myself.”
4 The Final Dispatch: “It is easy to forget what you are about, in the land of the dead.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “I traipsed dumbly around behind Florence . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Eating and Other Oral Activities
Letters to Dead Authors, #4: Charlotte. “I have seized my Eve, my ‘’v’’!”
5 The Final Dispatch: “But if we are all dead, then there is certainly no rush . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “Mother Other was waiting in the hall when I emerged.”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Methods of Listening
Letters to Dead Authors, #5: Hawthorne. “I stop by the dormitory at night to imagine the ghosts rushing in and out . . .”
6 The Final Dispatch: “The road, the ravine, the fields, the . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “‘No, no, no, no, no! I said, listen with your mouth.’”
Readings: from Principles of Necrophysics: “A Report on Certain Curious Objects . . .”
Letters to Dead Authors, #6: E. A. Poe. “The Cheesehill Gazette has published a defamatory letter . . .”
7 The Final Dispatch: “I had never seen a person looking the way she looked . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “She sweeps down the hall, her heavy skirts . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Punishment
Letters to Dead Authors, #7: Brontë (Emily). “Doctor Beede tells me, one finger probing greedily . . .”
8 The Final Dispatch: “I have just spent a summer in my mother’s hand.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “I was lying in my bed, putting in a little extra practice.”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Play
Letters to Dead Authors, #8: Mary Shelley. “Intermediate Death Studies. The students bend their heads . . .”
9 The Final Dispatch: “So I am back at the beginning of the chase.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “I swim up from sleep, frowning . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Certain Objects in the Collection
Letters to Dead Authors, #9: Stoker. “My voice weakens. It seems to sink back . . .”
10 The Final Dispatch: “This is how it happened.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “It is customary in telling stories from school . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On Articles of Dress
Letters to Dead Authors, #10: Mina Harker. “Now it is my mother whose voice I seemed to hear.”
11 The Final Dispatch: “[Crackling:] Where am I?”
The Stenographer’s Story: “I have told how I gained a reputation as a necronaut . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” A Secret
Letters to Dead Authors, #11: Jephra. “There has been another libelous letter in the Gazette.”
12 The Final Dispatch: “[Static, three or four sentences indistinct] . . . thought it was a piano factory . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “The months passed, the years.”
Readings: “Documentarian of the Dead”
Letters to Dead Authors, #12: Herman. “Something is going on in my school that I don’t understand.”
13 The Final Dispatch: “I am down at the swampy verge of our lawn . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “The voice crackles, drops out, returns as pure sound . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On the Patois of the Vocational School
Letters to Dead Authors, #13: Ishmael. “I have grown gaunt— no one knows how gaunt . . .”
14 The Final Dispatch: “Well, here we are again in my office. It looks real . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “‘There is an excellent private sanatorium in Pittsfield . . .’”
Readings: from Principles of Necrophysics: “The Structure of the Necrocosmos”
Letters to Dead Authors, #14: Jane E. “I have had a disappointment.”
15 The Final Dispatch: “Do you hear it too? That low, cool, reasonable voice . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “The alarm, though we did not recognize it for what it was . . .”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” On the Difficulty of My Task
Letters to Dead Authors, #15: Jane. “At first my Theatrical Spectacle bid fair to be another disappointment . . .”
16 The Final Dispatch: “I flew like a phoenix out of the fire, and like a phoenix I was reborn.”
The Stenographer’s Story: “The water went down, leaving the grass all slicked with mud.”
Readings: from “A Visitor’s Observations.” A Private Conversation
Letters to Dead Authors, #16: Bartleby. “The story may have already reached you . . .”
17 The Final Dispatch: “The inspector set his hat on the spindly legged occasional table . . .”
The Stenographer’s Story: “Reader, she was dead.”
Editor’s Afterword
Appendix A: Last Will and Testament
Appendix B: Instructions for Saying a Sentence
Appendix C: Ectoplasmoglyphs #1–40
Acknowledgments
Footnotes
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