Posted on March 22, 2019 at 12:15 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Back in the 1920s, an anonymous person — we’ll call him or her a genius, really — circulated a thirty-nine-question survey among many of the time's prominent writers.

Virginia Woolf, Margaret Kennedy, Rebecca West, and Hilaire Belloc were among those who jotted down their answers in a journal that passed from writer to writer.

The notebook, titled Really and Truly: A Book of Literary Confessions, literally spent close to a century under actual wraps (sellotape and wax, according to the Smithsonian article that details this find).

But when Kennedy’s grandson went through her papers, he certainly couldn’t resist breaking the seal.

See how big-name authors answered questions like “who’s the most overrated living English writer” and “who’s the greatest literary genius ever to live” in the Smithsonian’s article on the notebook dubbed the literary burn book.

Categories: Today in Books

Tagged As: Memorabilia

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