Anthony Burgess wrote his Enderby novels under the pen name Joseph Kell. So he was amused when in 1963 the Yorkshire Post asked him to review one of them.
Sensing a practical joke by one of the editors, he submitted a scathing review. “This is in many ways a dirty book,” he wrote. “It may well make some people sick, and those of my readers with tender stomachs are advised to let it alone.”
Alas, the assignment wasn’t a joke. The newspaper published Burgess’ review — and when it discovered his double identity, “I was attacked by the editor of the Yorkshire Post on Yorkshire Television and promptly, and perhaps justly, dismissed.”
See Conflict of Interest.