Well, inspired by the 100 Greatest Movie Deaths thread, I’m going to ask…what would YOU include in a list of the “100 Greatest LITERARY deaths”? Deaths of fictional characters in literature, that is.
I’d include a few “starter” suggestions of my own, but…I’m very tired right now.
Ranchoth
(Next up; “100 Greatest Literary Maimings and/or Disfigurings”)
From Dickens, Little Nell and Sydney Carton stand out.
Svidrigailov in Crime and Punishment.
Gollum, in Lord of the Rings.
Boy Staunton, in Robertson Davies’ “Deptford” trilogy.
Julius Caesar, in the play of the same name what Shakespeare wrote.
Bound to be others, I’m sure, but those sprang to my mind right away.
Jo in BLEAK HOUSE allus gets me.
Gatsby
Hamlet
Patroclus
Oedipus (in Oed. at Col.)
Does Jesus count?
This should probably go in Cafe Society.
We can’t leave off Mercutio, from Romeo and Juliet. And of course, Kurtz from Heart of Darkness.
Gus in “Lonesome Dove”
Beth in “Little Women”
In children’s lit, Sal’s mom in “Walk Two Moons”…it’s literature…it won a Newbery.
Anna Karenina
Mimi in Bohemians of the Latin Quarter
The anti-hero of Difficult Death
Miss Runcible in Vile Bodies
The other anti-hero, of Predestined]
Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux Camellias
All the deaths in A Hundred Years of Solitude.
The death of professor Moriarty and the rumoured death of Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls.
Fuchsia in ‘Gormenghast’…
Paul in ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’.
Franza in “The Book of Franza” by Ingeborg Bachmann
<spoiler>She commits suicide by bashing her head into a pyramid in Egypt</spoiler>
We include Mercutio, but we leave off Romeo and Juliet?
I’ve mentioned this before, but when I was in 4th grade our teacher read us a story about a boy whose best friend dies as the result of an allergic reaction to bee stings. I can’t recall the title of the book, but I distinctly recall how terrible we all felt.
I thought the death of the title character in Madame Bovary was incredibly and memorably grotesque, IIRC.
And I remember being depressed for a week after the main character in Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge died at the end, so utterly and irredeemably alone.
And who can forget the death of Clarissa, from Samuel Richardson’s book of the same name? (If you managed to read that far…) The broken lily metaphor has stuck in my mind for years.
This would be A Taste of Blackberries by Doris Buchanan Smith. I agree, it’s a memorable death.
How about the Wicked Witch of the West. Does being melted count as death?
A Taste of Blackberries is the primary reason I’m bee-o-phobic. Stupid easily impressionable childhood brain.
I’ll add Snowden in Catch-22, Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury, and Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Snowden’s death is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read.
And in a more recent novel (hence the spoiler)…
the deaths of the tailors’ family and of Maneck Kohlah A Fine Balance, which left me pissed off at Rohinton Mistry for writing such a sad, unjust, and uncompromising story.
Elly & Iphy Binewski in Geek Love. Does that count as one or two? 
T S Garp in The World According to Garp
Ooh, neat thread! A few more, though I know I’ve forgotten at least one I wanted to include…
King Lear (and Cordelia), of course
Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra
Enjolras and Grantaire in Les Miserables (a book packed with great death scenes)
Hotspur in 1 Henry IV: “And food for --”
From the Shakespeare’s Contemporaries Department: the title characters in Marlowe’s Edward II (shudder) and Doctor Faustus, and Webster’s Duchess of Malfi.
Borderline, I think, since he never actually appears onstage in the play, but the narration of Falstaff’s death in Henry V is deeply moving.
Hazel in Watership Down
Porthos in The Man in the Iron Mask
Clarence in Richard III
A couple from Lord of the Rings that I’ll spoilerproof, just in case:
Theoden and Denethor – spectacular scenes in totally opposite ways
Fredo in The Godfather
Forgot Marvin the Paranoid Android in So Long and Thanks For All the Fish! And I don’t even think that was the one I initially forgot…
Then again, you could argue that Elly died well before her physical death. The end of the entire family (save for Oly and Lily) is pretty spectacular, considering who causes it. Oly’s suicide/murder at the end is memorable, too.
Boxer the horse being dragged away to the glue truck in George Orwell’s Animal Farm was pretty memorable. Especially when the normally non-emotional Benjamin the donkey becomes hysterical as his friend is being taken away.