Product Description

This is a series of spoof letters between two denizens of the literary world. It takes the form of a correspondence between Gerald Marsh, a retired literary man and teacher and his ex-pupil Sir Harvey Marlowe, a grand publisher and biographer. They swap bad jokes, some awfully funny, some funnily awful, anecdotes that make you wince with embarrassment, literary quips that are woeful in their pretentious and unconscious hilarity. Never were two comic heroes so well-versed in literature and yet so gut-wrenchingly stupid. They are not above blackmailing each other, either, as Marsh, gently threatens to reveal "a sordid incident" to a TV programme at the same time as he submits his inordinately long life's work, "Pass the Fruitcake, Iris" - a history of Music Hall Gaffes - to his publishing friend, Sir Harvey Marlowe. Among the literary dilemmas they pose each other are: is Roy Hattersely a great writer, was Virginia Woolf a man? What would a Samuel Beckett Cookbook contain?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #613110 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 156 pages

About the Author
Craig Brown is one of Britain's funniest writers. His regular columns in The Sunday telegraph and Private Eye have won him a considerable following.

Customer Reviews

Comic Perfection
Oh dear Lord, how achingly perfect The Marsh-Marlowe Letters are! As parody, as satire, as stomach pain inducingly funny pieces in their own right, these spoof letters are flawless. As funny as Wodehouse or Waugh (yes, that good) they are a must buy. If you have ever enjoyed (or better yet, hated) those collected letters between eminent personages that are published so frequently, then these are a magnificent addendum. This little volume attains a new level of toe-scrunching, wriggling around in your seat joy. How The Marsh-Marlowe Letters are not known throughout all English-speaking nations is a mystery: they deserve to be.