Many of literature's best known characters have spent nights sleepless - Heathcliff roamed the moors, Macbeth paced guiltily, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's wife watched the yellow wallpaper. While sleep and dreams have long been regarded a subject, insomnia in literature has remained a blank. This text collects famous and lesser known passages on insomnia from world literature, past and present. The pieces have been chosen for their beauty, drama, insight and variety. Extracts from novels, short stories, poems and philosophy are included, with pieces by a range of writers including Isak Dinesen, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Marguerite Duras, Elizabeth Jolley, Angela Carter, George Simic, Vikram Seth, Ovid, Yasunari Kawabata, Colette, Rilke, Henry James, Maurice Blanchot, Christina Stead, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Carver and 40 others.

Jane Messer was born in Melbourne, and travelled widely before settling in Sydney. Her short stories, reviews and articles have appeared in a range of Australian journals. She is also the author of Night By Night (1994).