Dan Glaister's novel,
A Melancholy Event, "features not one but two guns, hanging in a pair. These are guns with a purpose, for they are duelling pistols, and thereby – with apologies to Shakespeare and Jeffrey Archer – hangs a tale."
At the
Guardian Glaister tagged
ten top books and stories from the "grand literary tradition" involving duels, including:
The Duel by Anton Chekhov
A story of two lovers who have fallen out of love and two men whose friendship cannot survive their opposing worldviews. Chekhov takes his regular ingredients (the bourgeoisie, decay 
and ennui), places them in the sweltering crucible of a seaside resort in the Caucasus, and throws in a duel. For Chekhov, the duel is a catalyst for change and reconciliation, for his characters to learn something about themselves and the world around them. In common with many duelling stories, there is an air of comic ineptitude to the proceedings; unlike most, nobody dies from a gunshot wound.
Read about
another entry on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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