The New Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes

Edited by John Gross

Oxford, Stg£8.99, 385pps

In a genre clogged with the musty and familiar, the estimable Gross has achieved the near miracle of finding something fresh to say about such obsessively observed figures as Dr Johnson and Oscar Wilde.

From Hester Piozzi, he extracts one of Johnson's best gags, provoked by a young man who lamented that he had "lost all his Greek": "I believe it happened at the same time, Sir, that I lost all my large estate in Yorkshire."

Hugh Kingsmill confirms from a meeting with Alfred Douglas what many must have felt looking at photographs of Wilde with Bosie: "He is decidedly plain. I cannot imagine that even in his prime his nose can have meant much to connoisseurs."

We learn that Byron did not like cigars (he tried to extinguish one lit by a fellow swimmer), Shelley did not like the theatre ("I see the purpose of this comedy. It is to associate virtue with bottles and glasses, and villainy with books"), but James Joyce had great charm: "If he arrived in a taxi, he wouldn't get out until the driver had finished what he was saying."

The few chestnuts that appear, such as Coleridge's disruptive gentleman from Porlock and Waugh gorging on the family's bananas, are so revealing as to demand inclusion.