Did you know that Jonathan Swift, author of 'Gulliver's Travels', refused to talk to anyone for an entire year? That Arnold Bennett died of typhoid after drinking Paris tapwater to prove it was safe? That Voltaire got rid of boring guests by pretending to faint? That 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold' and 'Ulysses' were originally rejected by publishers?
It's all here and more in over 300 curious literary lists: authors who wrote standing up, authors' famous last words, writers who couldn't spell, unusual habits, sexual peccadilloes, unintended double entendres in the classics, bad reviews of future classics, writers who were spies, writers who stammered, and more.
