The Life in the Grave began to be conceived in the trenches of the First World War, at the outpost of the Monastery in Serbia. A chapter was even published back then in the newspaper New Greece, which was coming out in Thessaloniki in 1917.

After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the first collection appeared as a column in the weekly Bell of Mytilene. The reprint from that column (1924) became the first edition of the book. Since then, The Life in the Grave has maintained a steady course to this day, amidst many turbulent political adventures, enthusiasms, and misunderstandings.

The circulation of the book was banned during the four years of the Metaxas dictatorship and the subsequent four years of the Occupation. (...)[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]