How I love stories like this:

Aug 20 2002

In August 1903, James Joyce had taken to writing reviews in the Daily Expressto earn money he desperately needed to live. His style of review, which one might rightly call harsh, offended the editor E.V. Longworth when it was directed at a book he had intended Joyce to treat indulgently. Among other condemnations of Stephen Gywnn's Today and Tomorrow in Ireland, Joyce wrote ‘Give Ireland the status of Canada and Mr. Gywnn becomes and imperialist at once.’ Longworth, partly in vengeance against Joyce's insolence and partly to ameliorate the harsh tone of the review, appended a sentence of his own to the review before it went to print. The sentence read, ‘The volume, amiably bound and printed, is a credit to the Dublin firm to whose enterprise its publication is due.’ Joyce, not to be outdone, concluded his next equally scathing review with, ‘For the rest, the binding of the book is as ugly as one could reasonably expect.’ Longworth responded with a threat to kick Joyce down a flight of stairs if he ever showed his face at the Daily Express again. By his own choosing, Joyce never reviewed again.

sources: [1,2]