Curiosities of literature

Lordy. It’s another book by Professor John Sutherland, and a fat one at that. What David Crystal is to linguistics and James Patterson to thrillers, John Sutherland is to literary criticism.

I’ve more than once been critical about Sutherland in print, having detected — but who am I to talk? — a certain slapdashery in some of his scholarly productions. On the last occasion, I received a very gracious, if somewhat Eeyorish, email conceding the odd point and explaining his pace of output with a poignant allusion to alimony. So I don’t want the old brute to feel I’ve got it in for him. We all gotta eat.

This book (co-authored with an old pal, Stephen Fender; Sutherland excels in the Victoriana, while Fender is the Americanist) should bring delight to many, sell tons and keep as many ex-wives as any of us could wish for in scones and jam.

The idea is to tell a story about something interesting that happened in the history of literature, or something interesting that happened in history that gave rise to literature, for every day of the year.