Everyone has heard of Le Suicide, by Emile Durkheim, but relatively few have read even its English translation. This is a pity, since it is a good read, although it may seem tasteless to enjoy a treatise on such a sad subject. French psychiatric literature has so lacked appeal for the English, that its first appearance in 1897 was not followed by an English translation until 1952. However, the English translation is vigorous, clear and vivid, capturing the spirit of the time of the original edition, an age away from the pompous and turgid sociological literature of today. Durkheim wrote the book, one of his two great works, using a social phenomenon – suicide –to investigate society itself. Psychiatrists might read Suicide for the breadth and depth of its social data, now of historical interest, and for his closely reasoned sociological arguments.