"Your death will come on an ordinary day, in the middle of unfinished plans, and the world will continue without you."
— Latin proverbs on Memento Mori
In 1884, Ulysses S. Grant was dying of throat cancer and was dead broke.
His money was wiped out by a swindler who stole his fortune.
Desperate to leave something for his wife, he agreed to write his Civil War memoirs and was close to signing a contract for a meager 10% royalty.
Mark Twain stepped in, called the deal robbery and offered Grant 70% of the profits through his own publishing company.
Grant raced death to finish the book, completing it just days before he died in July 1885.
It became one of the greatest memoirs ever written.
The royalties left his widow nearly half a million dollars, about $16 million today, and the book has never gone out of print.