Death Be Not Proud is a 1949 memoir by American journalist John Gunther. The book describes the decline and death of Gunther's son, Johnny, due to a brain tumor. The title comes from Holy Sonnet X by John Donne, also known from its first line as the poem "Death Be Not Proud".
At the time the book was published in the late 1940s, memoirs about illness and grief were uncommon. After writing it, however, he changed his mind and sought to have it published. Although Gunther was an experienced and extremely popular author, his publisher, Harper & Brothers, was reluctant to take on this book.
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Katharine Graham, writing for the Washington Post, wrote "Without doubt, the outstanding work of the week is John Gunther's Death Be Not Proud, in the Ladies Home Journal. But it is only for the strong-minded or the very strong-hearted...Harper's is publishing the book, of which this is a condensed version."
A reviewer in the Washington Post wrote that "It is this memory [of Johnny] which John Gunther has attempted to preserve in a memoir heart-breaking in its quiet simplicity and restraint."
Vogue magazine described Death Be Not Proud as "a poignant, factual account of [Gunther's] son's death."
Albin Krebs, in his obituary for John Gunther, wrote
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The vignette, “Death Be Not Proud,” the profits from which went to children's cancer research, was probably Mr. Gunther's most vividly memorable work.
</blockquote>"To read it is to grasp the meaning of man's power to defy Death's hurt, to be filled with confidence and emptied of despair. It will bring fresh spirit to the weary, new confidence and light to those who walk in shadow." — Walter Duranthy, in the New York Herald Tribune.
Adaptations
The story was made into a television movie in 1975, starring Robby Benson as Johnny Gunther, and Arthur Hill as his father.
Publication data
- John Gunther, Death Be Not Proud (1949). Harper Perennial edition 1998: