Research Catalog

Title

Page fright : foibles and fetishes of famous writers / Harry Bruce.

Author

Bruce, Harry, 1934-

Publication

Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, c2009.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

351 p.; 24 cm.

Summary

A witty round-up of writers' habits that includes authors such as Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Leo Tolstoy, Ernest Hemingway, William Shakespeare, Henry James, etc.

Subject

• Authorship > Anecdotes
• Authors > Biography
• Writing > History
• Art d'écrire > Anecdotes
• Écrivains > Biographies
• Écriture > Histoire

Genre/Form

• Anecdotes
• Biographies
• History

Note

• "A Douglas Gibson book".

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 319-340) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• "Speaking to the eyes": Beginnings -- The feather is mightier than the sword -- Inkwells, steel nibs, billions of ballpoints -- The properly pointed, perfectly portable pencil -- The long reign of Longhand -- "First, I write by hand..." -- The almighty typewriter. Can you hear the rhythm? -- Hail the conquering word processor -- Pins, paste, scissors, recorders. The right paper, please -- Out of their mouths popped literature -- Keep out! Writers at work -- To hide out, or greet life -- Panoramas, bare walls, strange habits -- While working on it, shut up about it. Or don't -- They wrote lying down, standing up, stark naked -- Horror rolls in, "Like some poisonous fogbank" -- Blocked! -- "I'm a drinker with a writing problem" -- The wrong stuff -- Walking the walk, and other steps to creation
• Burning kisses, animal magnetism -- The daily and nightly grind -- "And how I get there is God's grace" -- "We are only telephone wires" -- What's worse than writing? Not writing -- From the great French hunter of "le mot juste": le mot dernier.

ISBN

• 9780771017124
• 077101712X

OCLC

• 319486885
• SCSB-12882402

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library