Mortal Coils

First edition (publ. Chatto & Windus)

Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley, published in 1921. The book consists of three short stories, a novelette and a play.

The title uses a phrase from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1:

[...] To die, to sleep,

To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause [...]

The stories all concern themselves with some sort of trouble, normally of an amorous nature, and often ending with disappointment.