melted:
Always a good reason for reading.
mrwaverly:
Emile Zola does it for me. If things are getting too fun, then I turn to either Therese Raquin, or Nana. Neither ends well for it's characters. But if you are in a Hardy kind of mood, Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, or The Woodlanders are relentlessly mournful. Victor Hugo's Notre Dame De Paris is nice and grim, too. Oscar Wilde wrote some stories for children that all have sadness and death hanging over them like a pall. L'Ingenu, by Voltaire is a very mournful tale. Dante Alleghieri's Inverno isn't a barrel of laughs, either. Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One, set in the happy carefree world of Los Angeles morticians, is a hoot. Although it does end very sadly, and has two of the best character names in modern fiction,viz. Aimee Thanatogenous (yes, that's where one of the lovely ladies on here took her user name from, being a mortician, and having a lovely set using her hearse), and the lovestruck Mr. Joyboy. But, as I said, for the real grimness, try a bit of Emile Zola. 😘😘😘