Last Words Of The Executed

Sometimes we remember nothing more than someone's last words.

Take, for example, Revolutionary War patriot and spy Nathan Hale. We remember little of him but how he left this world. "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," is how history records his last words.

The final words of the famous and infamous have been collected since antiquity because they speak to a primal curiosity and spark introspection: what does one say on the edge of oblivion? We expect last words to be poignant, a rsum or summation of life experience. Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. We want them to reveal secrets. But they very seldom do.

While other books have recorded the last words of the rich, respected and famous, Last Words of the Executed documents the final thoughts of the most discarded, reviled members of our society. It's an oral history of the overlooked, the infamous and the forgotten--who nonetheless speak to a common humanity with their last act on earth. This is the history of capital punishment in America, told from the gallows, the chair, and the gurney.