Poisoned Pens: Literary Invective from Amis to Zola

Poisoned Pens is a delicious compendium of literary feuds, slights, spleen, and venom, drawn from The Guardian newspaper column Writers on Writers. From what Byron really thought of Keats to Salman Rushdie's savage put-down of John Le Carre, from Cocteau's damning view of Victor Hugo to Edith Sitwell's derogatory description of D. H. Lawrence, here, complied by the author of Why Not Catch 21? is an anthology of writers on writers, eloquently giving vent to their least charitable feelings in outbursts of petulance, denunciations, abuse, mockery, and more.