Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature

"We have forgotten that the first readers of Gulliver's Travels or Sense and Sensibility had to guess who their authors might be, and that writers like Sir Walter Scott and Charlotte Bronte went to elaborate lengths to keep secret their authorship of the bestselling books of their times. From the sixteenth century to the present, from Edmund Spenser to Primary Colors, author John Mullan 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, critics played tricks in return."--BOOK JACKET.