The Mammoth Book of Literary Anecdotes

“Who would write who had anything better to do?” asked Lord Byron rhetorically, and in this amusing and informative anthology author Philip Gooden finds hundreds of illuminating anecdotes to reveal what writers got up to when they were not sitting at the typewriter or wielding quill pens. Over 250 stories of famous writers off-duty, from the sixteenth century to the present day, are featured. Among the forty wide-ranging sections, covering famous writers from the sixteenth century to the present day, are “Writers and Money,” “Writers and Crime,” “Writers and Sex,” “Writers and Lost Typescripts,” “Writers and Alcohol,” “Writers and the Public,” “Writers and Inspiration,” and “Writers and Best Sellers.”