i am not a book

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It has nothing to do with Potassium!

Franz Kafka

Kafka faced years of litigation from the ruthless Potassium lobby which successfully obstructed the publication of many of his works during his lifetime. Admirers of the author often leave bananas at his grave as a sort of obscene mark of respect I suppose.

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This item was later exposed as a fake. However, at the time of its sale nobody had a working tape recorder so it was impossible to determine its authenticity. Actually impossible.

It was only when the tape’s previous owner Eustace Smith (author of The Joyce of Sex) filed for divorce, prompting his (now ex-)wife to claim compensation for her outstanding performance on said tape, that the sordid lie was finally revealed.

This is becoming a frequent problem for auction houses. Fake literary sex-tapes cost fabulously wealthy literary sex-tape collectors millions every year. Say NO to literary sex-tape forgery #NoISaidNoIWillNo.

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I am glad that a poor ghost can bring laughter to your eyes

Oscar Wilde

Related posthumously and sarcastically to Hester Travers Smith during a séance. 

Source: Hester Travers Smith, Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde (London: T. Warner Laurie, c.1930)

After he died in 1900, Oscar Wilde became extremely disillusioned with life. Although Hester never admitted it until well after her own death, she was often reduced to tears by Wilde’s incessant epigrams during these spirit-sessions. In her memoir The Phantom Menace, Hester described her turbulent relationship with the ghost - his frequent taunts that Shamar (her favourite spirit guide) hated her, as well as the many many times he threatened to take demonic possession of her beloved beagle Winslow. 

Like most ghosts of this era, Wilde resented two things above all else: the living and the modernists. When he wasn’t frequenting high-society-séances, he would often amuse himself by smearing his ghostly-leavings on the door-handles of the Faber and Faber offices on Russell Square, much to the irritation of T.S. Eliot. Several critics have suggested that these cruel ghost-pranks may have been perpetrated by Wilde at the behest of the notorious ‘poet-prankster’ W.B. Yeats. Although this has never been confirmed, it is very likely the case. Yeats was a gifted theosophist who commanded the loyalty of many dead things, including Oscar Wilde, trilobites, poetry-readers, Winslow (eventually) and an ambitious young fleet of nine-and-fifty swans.

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Rejection letter issued by the Cicada Literary Review to author Sarah Frinkle. Very good condition, though paper has suffered some minor creasing all over. 

Item was among materials included in the auction of Frinkle’s library soon after her death. This particular letter, however, is notable for containing one of the earliest references to ‘The Unnamable’ - an act conceived by Frinkle herself (though others have attempted to claim credit) that ultimately made her name, ultimately led to her downfall and ultimately precipitated her death. 

Frinkle’s work is notoriously difficult to source and was never published during her lifetime. Or after her lifetime. Or indeed, at all.

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We need to distinguish between the needs bee and the need bees, that is to say, there are bees that need and then there are needs that bee. But there are also the bees' needs, that is, the needs of the really needy bees. Basically, we gotta bee problem

Usually attributed to Donald Rumsfeld. 

Although there is no evidence to confirm that he ever said these words, there is also no evidence to confirm that he never said these words.

It is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.

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Rare book review of Michael Merpise’s novel Herod’s Law. 

Merpise’s novel was famously withdrawn from circulation following a cluster of baby formula-related attacks committed soon after its publication.

The infants were never brought to justice.