The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate that the theory of the “death of the author” formulated by Roland Barthes in the late 1960s can be read in the context of the sanatorium treatment he underwent between 1942 and 1946, since the experience of tuberculosis was inscribed in two unpublished drafts Barthes wrote after leaving the sanatorium, namely Esquisse d’une société sanatoriale [Sketch of a Sanatorium Society] and L’Avenir de la rhétorique [The Future of Rhetoric]. By pointing out the similarities between The Future of Rhetoric and The Death of the Author, I seek to prove that some of Barthes’ concepts, hitherto seen as inspired by structuralist ideas, appeared in his writings much earlier. An additional consideration is given to the use of metaphors that clearly links the 1946 and 1947 texts to the 1967 The Death of the Author.