Did you know that Jonathan Swift once refused to speack to anyone for an entire year? That Arnold Bennett died of typhoid after drinking a glass of Paris tapwater to show that it was safe? That Dr Johnson was a big fan of bondage and flagellation? That Voltaire would get rid of boring house guests by pretending to faint? Than Moliere died while playing a hyperchondriac? Or that Raymond Chandler was always inspired to write by watching his wife do the housework in the nude? This book contains these anecdotes and more in over 300 literary lists including: authors who wrote standing up, writers who could not spell; classic literary ripostes, literary romances, marital disasters, literary recluses, discarded titles for classic novels, famous last words, writers' day jobs, writers' hobbies, unusual work habits, sexual peccadilloes, strange deaths, pen names and real names, author anagrams, bestsellers written in prison, big drinkers and laudanum lushes, authors' favourite drinking haunts, unintended double entendres from the classics, books banned by the Vatican, bad reviews of future classics, literary feuds, authors on critics, the all-time most boring classics.