Walking to the subway station after the cremation of his long-time colleague Sonia Clements, James de Witt, a partner in London's esteemed Peverell Press in P. D. James' 1994 murder mystery "Original Sin," ruminates on the unsatisfying funeral he has just witnessed. "There should, he thought, be a service designed for those without a religion .... It might be an interesting ... publishing venture, a book of alternative funeral rites for humanists, atheists, and agnostics, a formal ceremony of remembrance, a celebration of the human spirit with no reference to its possible continuing existence. Striding to the station ... he amused himself selecting passages of prose and verse which might be included. De la Mare's 'Look thy last on all things lovely' for a touch of nostalgic melancholy. Perhaps ... Keats' 'Ode to Autumn' ... " This is the slender volume he outlined that pensive September afternoon.