SAMUEL JOHNSON 1709 – 1784 ‘Iam moriturus’ (I who am about to die) John Hawkins published a biography of this giant of English literature just three years after his death. In his last moments, in great pain after being bled for dropsy, he muttered these words. They were recounted to Hawkins within 45 minutes of Johnson’s death

LORD BYRON 1788 – 1824 ‘Come, come, no weakness; let’s be a man to the last!’ Byron was attended by two young doctors on his death bed in Missolonghi. Faced with the terrible problem of treating a world-famous figure for an illness which neither knew anything about, they fell back on the usual treatment of the time – to bleed the patient and so reduce his fever. Byron resisted, saying that there had been 'more deaths by lancet than by the lance', but gave in when warned that the disease could ‘deprive him of reason'. The weakened poet sank into unconsciousness and died under his terrified doctors' hands. After the autopsy the doctors blamed each other for the deathPhotograph: National Portrait Gallery/The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images

EMILY DICKINSON 1830 – 1886 ‘I must go in, the fog is rising’Dickinson's health declined sharply over the last years of her life, until she finally became confined to her bed and was only able to write brief notes. According to her niece, Martha, her 'briefest last message' was reminiscent of 'an oft-repeated family caution, “it was already growing damp”.' Her physician gave the cause of death as Bright’s disease, a kidney ailment now called nephritisPhotograph: Hulton/Getty Images

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 1850 – 1894 ‘What’s that? Do I look strange?’In poor health from 1880, Stevenson had settled in Samoa in 1890 to recuperate, but probably died of a cerebral haemorrhage. According to his biographer, ‘At sunset he came downstairs … talked of a lecturing tour to America that he was eager to make, “as he was now so well,” … suddenly he put both hands to his head, and cried out, “What's that?” Then he asked quickly, “Do I look strange?” Even as he did so he fell on his knees beside her. He was helped into the great hall … losing consciousness instantly, as he lay back in the armchair that had once been his grandfather's ... ’

ANTON CHEKHOV 1860 – 1904 ‘It's a long time since I drank champagne’ Terminally ill, he went with his wife Olga to Badenweiler. Later she recalled his dying moments: ‘Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): "Ich sterbe" (I’m dying). The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: "It's a long time since I drank champagne". He drained it, lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child ... ’

MARK TWAIN 1835 – 1910 ‘Death, the only immortal, who treats us alike, whose peace and refuge are for all. The soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved’ Note found by his deathbed, published in Mark Twain’s Notebooks 1935 After suffering a heart attack in Bermuda, Twain went back to his Connecticut home to recover. Having predicted in 1909 that he would 'go out' with Halley's comet – which appeared in the year of his birth – he died the day after the comet's closest approach to Earth. According to Albert Bigelow Paine he said ‘Goodbye', and Dr Quintard, 'who was standing near, thought he added: “If we meet” - but the words were very faint.'Photograph: Classic Image/Alamy

LEO TOLSTOY 1828 – 1910 ‘We all reveal ... our manifestations ... This manifestation is over ... That's all’Tolstoy left his estate, aged 82, to begin a new life as a peasant. Reaching the small town of Astapovo he contracted pneumonia, and died a few days later in the stationmaster’s house. According to the stationmaster, his last words were: ‘But the peasants … how do the peasants die?’ His friend Vladimir Chertkov preferred to remember something from the night before. 'He was lying on his back, breathing heavily … all of a sudden - as if arguing with himself - broke out in a loud voice: "We all reveal ... our manifestations ... This manifestation is over ... That's all".'Photograph: Hulton/Getty Images

FRANZ KAFKA 1883 – 1924 ‘Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, (is) to be burned unread’ Max Brod ignored Kafka's request and took the writer's papers with him when he moved to Israel in 1939. There, they have sparked a legal tussle which is still ongoing. The bulk of Kafka's work was published posthumously, much of it incomplete, after he died from tuberculosis in a sanatorium near Vienna, apparently from starvation as his condition made it too painful for him to eatPhotograph: Hulton/Getty Images

VIRGINIA WOOLF 1882 – 1941 ‘I feel certain that I'm going mad again …’ Fearing that she was on the brink of the latest in a series of breakdowns, Woolf committed suicide by loading her pockets full of stones and wading into the River Ouse. Her suicide note told her husband that she would rather die than endure another such episode. ‘I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do ... I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V’

JAMES JOYCE 1882 – 1941 ‘Does nobody understand?’ Joyce died in Zurich, two days after surgery for a perforated ulcer. The Irish government declined his wife's offer to repatriate his remains. According to Richard Ellmann, a Catholic priest tried to convince his widow that there should be a funeral mass. She replied: 'I couldn't do that to him'