Terry Eagleton writes:

Mullan’s Anonymity is far from such grandiose reflections. It is a history of literary anonymity from the 16th century to the present, which wisely refuses a grand narrative of its subject on the grounds that the motives for such anonymity are too diverse. Some authors are too shy for publicity, some are too scurrilous, a few exploit their anonymous status for the sheer mischief of it, while others use anonymity as a perverse way of provoking curiosity. Anthony Trollope resorted to anonymity because he wrote too fast and was sensitive to charges of overproduction. Anthony Burgess went anonymous for a while for much the same reason. He was also the undeclared reviewer of one of his own novels in the Yorkshire Post.

(LRB 22 May 2008)

Faber | hardback 374 pp. |ISBN: 9780571195145