Three writers who were murdered, two who might have been, and one who just sounds like he was.

Some writers lead fast lives that lead to faster deaths. Addiction to drugs and alcohol is always a popular choice, as is suicide. Tuberculosis has its hand in many an untimely death, and heart attacks is always a consistent bystander.

But murder? Even though it sounds like the clichéd plot to some dime store crime thriller, some writers have met their ends through nefarious means. Here are three writers who were murdered, two who might have been, and one who just sounds like he was.


Three Who Were Murdered:

Sir Thomas More

England's King Henry VIII penchant for killing people close to him is well known. If killing a wife was okay, killing a friend was par for the course, too.

Enter Sir Thomas More, writer of Utopia, Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII, and a devout Roman Catholic follower. When the Protestant Reformation began, More sided with the Pope and Rome, believing any deviation from Catholicism to be an act of heresy.

In 1532, More refused to participate in an oath declaring King Henry the Supreme Head of the English Church, which was akin to telling a dictator to take a hike. A year later, More didn't attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn as Queen of England--but offered his kind regards for a happy life for the king and queen. Polite "Sorry I can't make the wedding!" cards don't carry the cache you might imagine, so More was in Henry's crosshairs.

Fast-forward through a variety of trumped-up charges (bribery and treason, among others), and More found himself arrested and stuck in the Tower of London. Brought before a panel of judges that included members of Anne Boleyn's family, More still refused to cooperate. He was found guilty under the Treason Act of 1534 and ordered hanged, drawn, and quartered. King Henry reduced the execution sentence to a simple decapitation though, to make things easy on his old friend. Whattaguy!

More took his impending death rather casually, famously telling his executor, "I pray you, I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, I can shift for myself," and that he died as "the king's good servant, but God's first."

Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe always had his detractors. The poor man's Shakespeare--writer of The Jew of Malta and Doctor Faustus, among others--was a feisty playwright who always seemed to find himself in the middle of controversy.

This penchant for drama came to a head in 1593 when Marlowe was associated with libelous material about protestants. (Yeah, again with the whole Catholic vs. Protestant angle.) As a Catholic, this wasn't something you wanted to be associated with. He was ordered to appear before authorities regarding the libel claim, but the meetings were delayed.

While staying at a house of a Ms. Eleanor Bull (the equivalent of a modern day B&B), Marlowe allegedly got into an argument with another gentleman, Ingram Frizer, over the bill for staying at Bull's. According to the official report, Marlowe jumped Frizer and hit him on the head while making an attempt for Frizer's dagger. In the ensuing struggle, Frizer, the report claims, stabbed Marlowe above the right eye in self-defense, killing him.

Was it a simple brawl over a B&B bill that did Marlowe in? Scholars can't agree. Theories abound like an Agatha Christie novel that Marlowe was really assassinated on orders by Queen Elizabeth for his libelousness...or by Sir Walter Raleigh's henchmen...or by Sir Robert Cecil's guys because of Marlowe's Catholicism...or a variety of other reasons.

If you're going to die, might as well have at least a dozen people aiming for you.

Federico García Lorca

The Spanish playwright and poet had leftist sympathies, which was a problem when the Spanish Civil War broke out between the Republicans and Nationalists in 1936.

The Nationalists backed General Francisco Franco, a fascist who didn't take kindly to the Spanish republic or anyone of a liberal bent. Lorca was always outspoken about his politics in the years leading up to the war--and when Nationalists gained in popularity, Lorca feared he might be in danger.

On August 18, Lorca's brother-in-law (who was also the mayor of the major city of Granada) was murdered. A day later, August 19, Lorca himself disappeared, believed to be executed, yet no one knows. Much like with Christopher Marlowe, theories abound but facts are scarce. So scarce in Lorca's case, his body has never been found.

In 2009, excavators dug for Lorca's corpse at a spot where a man once claimed to have shoveled a ditch for Lorca after he was shot. No human remains or clues were found by investigators.




Two Who Might Have Been:

Albert Camus

Camus won 1957's Nobel Prize in Literature largely for his work in absurdism.

What isn't absurd? That Camus might have been murdered. (See what I did there? Absurdism/absurd? Ehh? Ehhh?)

The official story is that Camus died in early January 1960 from a car crash. Camus had spent the Christmas holiday in Provence with his wife and kids, but instead of taking the train back to Paris (for which he had already bought a ticket), Camus took his publisher up on the offer to ride with him in his car. They never made it. The publisher's car veered off the icy roads and wrapped itself around a tree. Camus died instantly. The publisher died a few days later.

In 2011, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published a claim from Giovanni Catelli, an Italian academic and poet, who stated Camus was killed by KGB operatives who wanted him dead for his outspoken remarks against the Soviet Union and support of Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, a book which was banned by Joseph Stalin.

The proof, Catelli claims, comes from a diary passage from Czech poet and translator Jan Zábrana, who allegedly wrote about Camus's death in a book entitled Celý život, but that the passage was deleted in Italian translations of the text.

According to The Guardian:

In the missing paragraph, Zábrana writes: "I heard something very strange from the mouth of a man who knew lots of things and had very informed sources. According to him, the accident that had cost Albert Camus his life in 1960 was organised by Soviet spies. They damaged a tyre on the car using a sophisticated piece of equipment that cut or made a hole in the wheel at speed.

"The order was given personally by [Dmitri Trofimovic] Shepilov [the Soviet foreign minister] as a reaction to an article published in Franc-tireur [a French magazine] in March 1957, in which Camus attacked [Shepilov], naming him explicitly in the events in Hungary." In his piece, Camus had denounced the "Shepilov Massacres" – Moscow's decision to send troops to crush the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

So, a friend of a friend of a friend of a man who knows someone who knows something says Camus was assassinated three years after he insulted the Soviet foreign minister.

And you thought your mom held a grudge.

Pablo Neruda

Continuing with our theme of pissed off governments killing writers, please welcome to the stage Pablo Neruda!

Neruda involved himself in Chilean politics--even more so in Latin American politics as a whole, aligning himself with Marxist movements throughout the region.

By 1970, and riding a tide of popularity, Neruda garnered a nomination for the Chilean presidency. He eventually offered his support for the office to Salvador Allende, who would become the first democratically elected Marxist president in the world. By 1973, all of this would unravel.

Two years earlier, in 1971, Neruda won the Nobel Prize in Literature, bolstering his nation-wide popularity throughout Chile and becoming an international icon. Yet, whereas Neruda was at the height of his popularity, Chile's government was in the gutter. Political bickering was at a boil, leading to a 1973 coup d'état of Allende by fascist General Augusto Pinoche. Being a Marxist, Neruda's popularity didn't reach individuals like Pinochet.

Post-coup, Chilean military searched Neruda's house, but didn't arrest him. Days later, Neruda checked himself into the hospital for prostate cancer treatment. While there, he went into cardiac arrest and died.

In 2013, Neruda's former chauffeur came forward claiming assassins acting on behalf of Pinochet killed the poet while he was receiving treatment in the hospital. Another theory is that former CIA operative Michael Townley killed Neruda, again on orders of Pinochet.

In other words, Pinochet wasn't a fan of Neruda's poetry.



One Who Just Sounds Like He Was:

Dan Andersson

Even if you're an English major, you might not know Dan Andersson. He was a Swedish author and poet who apparently moonlighted as a creepy poser in old photography.

Andersson was visiting Stockholm in 1920 to look into a job at the newspaper Social-Demokraten when he grabbed a room at the Hotel Hellman for his stay while in town.

At the same time, the Hotel Hellman was dutifully killing bedbugs in the hotel with hydrogen cyanide. Because nothing says classy hotel like a joint overrun with a parasitic infestation.

In a surprise to no one, hydrogen cyanide is dangerous, and Andersson's room was doused with it--yet the hotel staff forgot to quarantine the room until the poison dissipated. They sent Andersson up to his room to enjoy his stay, and Andersson's stay was quite brief. By 3pm that day, he was dead from poison.

But, hey, it was bedbug free after all.