HATER'S HANDBOOK
By
How inTOXICating! A baleful collection of vitriolic masterpieces from vituperative virtuosos throughout the ages. Nothing is sacred, no arrows are left unslung and the mud could muddle the Mississippi. Some of the Saints and Sinners who share in this ""Wonderful World of III Will: the Catcalls, Abuse and Caustic Comment Flung at Persons of Note Throughout the Ages"" are Presidents: FDR- ""one third Eleanor and two third mush""; Philosophers- Thomas Jefferson on Plato- ""take from him his sophistries, futilities and incomprehensibilities and what remains? His foggy mind""; Playwrights- Tolstoy on Shakespeare- ""the works of Shakespeare have nothing whatever in common with art and poetry""; Artists- London's leading art critic John Ruskin on Rembrandt- ""In Rembrandt's system the colors are all wrong""; Actors and Actresses-""Tallulah Bankhead barged down the Nile last night as Cleopatra--and sank""; even the Gettysburg address received its bad notice in the Chicago Times- ""an offensive exhibition of boorishness and vulgarity."" Many victims were quite capable of rapier retorts which make for some bloody exchanges; others were stonethrowers in their own right...H.L. Mencken on everybody for instance. Sometimes vicious, often devastingly funny, these pieces are certainly readable and, who knows? they just might come in handy.