David Pryce-Jones on the A.N.Wilson Hoax

"Literary London is enjoying a belly-laugh at the expense of one A.N.Wilson, a writer of many books and even more newspaper columns. He has just published a biography of John Betjeman, in his day the Poet Laureate and one of the most popular of poets in any age. In this biography is a letter purportedly from Betjeman to the Irish and long dead writer Honor Tracy, and Wilson uses this to improvise about their affair, conjuring up alcohol-fuelled lunches and afternoons in a rented room.

Honor Tracy was a lesbian – but let that pass. The letter is a quite brilliant pastiche of Betjeman, slang and all, and it contains an implanted acrostic – the first letters of its sentences read, “A.N. Wilson is a shit.” A well-wisher by the name of Eve de Harben had sent Wilson the letter about Honor Tracy, and he had failed to spot either that this name was an anagram of “ever been had” or the lethal acrostic..."

National Review