Anonymity : a secret history of English literature
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Anonymity : a secret history of English literature
Princeton University Press, c2007
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Note
"First published in 2007 by Faber and Faber ... London"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. [337]-351) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Some of the greatest works in English literature were first published without their authors' names. Why did so many authors want to be anonymous--and what was it like to read their books without knowing for certain who had written them? In Anonymity, John Mullan gives a fascinating and original history of hidden identity in English literature. From the sixteenth century to today, he explores how the disguises of writers were first used and eventually penetrated, how anonymity teased readers and bamboozled critics--and how, when book reviews were also anonymous, reviewers played tricks of their own in return. Today we have forgotten that the first readers of Gulliver's Travels and Sense and Sensibility had to guess who their authors might be, and that writers like Sir Walter Scott and Charlotte Bront went to elaborate lengths to keep secret their authorship of the best-selling books of their times. But, in fact, anonymity is everywhere in English literature. Spenser, Donne, Marvell, Defoe, Swift, Fanny Burney, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, Lewis Carroll, Tennyson, George Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Doris Lessing--all hid their names.
With great lucidity and wit, Anonymity tells the stories of these and many other writers, providing a fast-paced, entertaining, and informative tour through the history of English literature.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ix Introduction 3 Chapter 1: Mischief 9 Chapter 2: Modesty 41 Chapter 3: Women being men 76 Chapter 4: Men being women 114 Chapter 5: Danger 138 Chapter 6: Reviewing 181 Chapter 7: Mockery and devilry 217 Chapter 8: Confession 254 Chapter 9: Epilogue 286 Notes 298 Bibliography 337 Index 353
by "Nielsen BookData"
