Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author's brain, their soul and heart. A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted 'Top Tens' across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

Those taken away by their own hand leave many questions and many sorrows. In this volume ten of our vaunted authors share stories of tragedy and the early demise of characters who take a tortured path of no return.

01 - The Top 10 - Suicide - An Introduction

02 - In the Penal Colony by Franz Kafka

03 - Suicides by Guy de Maupassant

04 - The Victory by Rabindranath Tagore

05 - Paul's Case by Willa Cather

06 - Claude Gueux by Victor Hugo

07 - The Mourner by Mary Shelley

08 - A Slav Soul by Alexander Kuprin

09 - Cohen of Trinity by Amy Levy

10 - A Passion in the Desert by Honoré de Balzac

11 - The Quadroons by Lydia Maria Child