Do n’t experience too bad if you ’ve ever struggled to get throughJames Joyce’sUlyssesor one ofD.H. Lawrence ’s long - winded book . Virginia Woolf and several other well - respected writers of the 20th hundred had a few choice word for Joyce and Lawrence , label them the " most overrated " English writers in a lately rediscover 1923 survey .
AsSmithsonianreports , these thoughts were commemorate in a journal that was passed around British literary band that include Woolf and nine other writers in the early twentieth 100 . Within the “ literary burning book , ” asVoxdubbed it , writers recorded their answers to a 39 - query survey about their thoughts on popular writer of the clock time , both living and beat . For exemplar , they were enquire to select the enceinte literary flair of all time , as well as the author most likely to be take in 25 years ’ time . ( In reaction to the latter question , author and poet Hilaire Belloc but answered , “ Me . ” )
TitledReally and Truly : A Book of Literary Confessions , thebookeventually ended up in novelist Margaret Kennedy ’s possession . It was lately rediscover by her grandson , William Mackesy , who , along with his first cousin , is one of the literary executor of Kennedy ’s estate .
“ Within were pages of printed questions with 10 sets of handwritten reply see between 1923 and 1927 , ” Mackesy explained inThe autonomous . “ Then the names came into focus and our center down . Here were Rose Macaulay , Rebecca West , Hilaire Belloc , Stella Benson — and Virginia Woolf . And our nan . ” It ’s indecipherable who originally wrote the survey .
In plus to take jab at Lawrence and Joyce , one unknown answerer calledT.S. Eliotthe unfit living English poet as well as the worst survive literary critic . In response to a prompt to name the dead author whose graphic symbol they most disliked , the participants name - drop Samuel Johnson , Oscar Wilde , George Meredith , Marcel Proust , and Lord Byron . Woolf , for her part , answer , “ I like all dead men of letters . ” ( If the respondent had bang about the misdeed ofCharles Dickens , he may have ended up on the list , as well . )
“ It is interesting how sensing vary , especially how little credit there is of now - most - lionize writer from that era , ” Mackesy notes . This little activity was n’t all petty , though . Shakespeare , unsurprisingly , advance the most votes for greatest literary champion . Homer , author ofThe IliadandThe Odyssey , receive one voter turnout .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
