Oscar Wilde on Charles Dickens:

“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”

Joseph Conrad on Herman Melville:

“He knows nothing of the sea. Fantastic — ridiculous.”

John Dryden on John Donne:

“Were he translated into numbers, and English, he would yet be wanting in the dignity of expression.”

Vladimir Nabokov on Joseph Conrad:

“I cannot abide Conrad’s souvenir-shop style, bottled ships and shell necklaces of romantic clichés.”

Henry James on Edgar Allan Poe:

“An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.”

H.G. Wells on George Bernard Shaw:

“An idiot child screaming in a hospital.”

Gustave Flaubert on George Sand:

“A great cow full of ink.”

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac:

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.”