There are seven beings that are called the Endless.
They are, in order of age, Destiny, Death, Dream,
Destruction, Desire and Despair, and Delirium,
who was once Delight.

The Sandman is a 75-part comic book series, written by Neil Gaiman. The central character in the series is Dream, also known as Morpheus, also known by many other names, one of the Endless. He is captured in 1916 by an occult group, and held prisoner until he escapes in 1988. The consequences of his imprisonment become clear in the course of the series.

The series consists of several storylines, all combining in one major tale, that slowly sneaks up on you as you are reading. There are also some shorter stories, but they are all consistent with and part of the main story, the story of Morpheus.

Neil Gaiman was born November 10, 1960. He lives in an odd, rambling house of uncertain location, where he writes in a basement room filled with books and old armchairs. He has two cats, who are both quite mad, and three children, who are, to his occasional surprise, fairly sane, and a very nice wife. He has received a number of awards, and, while he no longer believes that being a grown-up is all it's cracked up to be, still enjoys staying up after his bed-time.

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Here are some examples of what other people have written about The Sandman:

"These are great stories, and we're lucky to have them. To read Now, and maybe again Then, later on, when we need what only a good story has the power to do: to take us away to worlds that never existed, in the company of people we wish we were... or thank God we aren't."
- Stephen King, from his introduction to World's End

"One of the basic things that runs all the way through Sandman is the male/female dichotomy, male/female friction and the difference in men's and womens's outlooks on the world. I like writing women. I feel that women are far more sensible than men and I like the sensible characters. Death is a million times more sensible than Dream himself."
- Neil Gaiman

"Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN is the most imaginative and transfixing book in mainstream comics today - and also the most radical. It tells eerie, loopy, sometimes desolating tales about capricious, ill-starred gods and frail humans, and it pulls off the rather neat trick of making Death, at long last, something to die for. Yet even in its most otherworldly moments, SANDMAN's greatest (and most disturbing) strength is that all its horrors, and all its hopes, are only as profound and familiar as the human heart itself.
To read THE SANDMAN is to read something more than an imaginative new comic: it is to read a powerful new literature, fresh with the resonance of timeless myths."
- Mikal Gilmore, Rolling Stone

"Neil Gaiman is on a plane all his own. Nobody in the field is better than this. No one has as much range, depth, and command of narrative. Gaiman is a master, and his vast, roomy stories, filled with every possible shade of feeling, are unlike anyone else's. If this isn't literature, nothing is."
- Peter Straub, from his afterword to Brief Lives

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Destiny
Destiny is the oldest of the Endless; in the Beginning was the Word, and it was traced by his hand on the first page of his book, before ever it was spoken aloud.

Destiny is also the tallest of the Endless, to mortal eyes.

There are some who believe him to be blind; whilst others, perhaps with more reason, claim that he has travelled far beyond blindness, that indeed, he can do nothing but see: that he sees the fine traceries the galaxies make as they spiral through the void, that he watches the intricate patterns living things make on their journey through time.

Death
Death accompanies each mortal twice in life. At birth, she speaks to them, but since no one remembers what she says, it is not known why. When they die, she guides them to what lies beyond their mortal years.

Mortals fear Death. They fear the sunless lands to which she guides them. They feebly attempt to placate her. They do not love her. Once though, a long time ago, a dreamer celebrated her gift in a song, and came closer to a true description of Death than any mortal since:

Death is before me today:
Like the recovery of a sick man,
Like going forth into a garden after sickness

Death is before me today:
Like the odor of myrrh,
Like sitting under a sail in a good wind.

Death is before me today:
Like the course of a stream
Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

Death is before me today:
Like the home that a man longs to see,
After years spent as a captive.

One day in every century, Death takes on mortal flesh, to better comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality: this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before and all that must come after.

Dream
It is hard to say anything at this time about Dream.

The previous Dream was a cold follower of rules, a collector of names, a breaker of his own heart. He was also a prince of stories, a friend to few, and an enemy to some. This is neither the place nor the time though, to tell his story.

The current Dream seems more compassionate than his predecessor, more caring, more concerned. But it is too early to tell anything about his reign over what is not, except perhaps this:

The king is dead, long live the king.

Destruction
Approximately 300 years ago, Destruction abandoned his realm. His sigil has been taken down, and he can no longer be reached. He is not dead, for if that was so, another aspect of Destruction would have taken his place. He simply choose not to be responsible for destruction and all other facets of his domain anymore. There is still destruction and change, it is just no longer controlled.

Destruction can no longer be reached, but should you ever you meet a tall, red-haired man, carrying a knapsack, you might want to offer him some bread and cheese. He tells good stories.

Desire
It is unlikely that any portrait will ever do Desire justice, since to see her (or him) is to love him (or her), passionately, painfully, and to the exclusion of all else.

Desire smiles in brief flashes, like sunlight glinting from a knife-edge. And there is much else that is knife-like about Desire.

Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are.

Everything.

Despair
Despair, Desire's sister and twin, is queen of her own bleak bourne. It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out on a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag upon your heart.

Her skin is cold, and clammy; her eyes are the colour of sky, on the grey, wet days that leach the world of colour and meaning; her voice is little more than a whisper, and while she has no odour, her shadow smells musky and pungent, lik the skin of a snake.

Despair says little, and is patient.

Delirium
Delirium is the youngest of the Endless.

She smells of sweat, sour wines, late nights, and leather.

Her realm is close, and can be visited; however, human minds were not made to comprehend her domain, and those few who have made the journey have been incapable of reporting more than the tiniest fragments.

The poet Coleridge claimed to have known her intimately, but the man was an inveterate liar, and in this, as in so much, we must doubt his word.

Her appearance is the most variable of all the Endless, who, at best, are ideas cloaked in the semblance of flesh. She has a tendency to turn into butterflies or goldfish every now and then.

Delirium was once Delight, but that was long ago even as the Endless reckon, and only Delirium herself knows why she changed. Through her mismatched eyes, one green and one blue, she sees the world in her own unique way.