Andrew Shaffer's Literary Rogues is an unflinching look at the bad behavior of some of our most beloved authors, from Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe, to Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Hunter S. Thompson and Bret Easton Ellis.

Literary Rogues is a wildly funny and illuminating history and analysis of the bad boys and girls of lit, from the author of Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

Part nostalgia, part serious history of Western literary movements, Literary Rogues: A Scandalous History of Wayward Authors is a raucous celebration of oft-vilified writers and their work, brimming with interviews, research, and personality.

A Wildly Funny and Shockingly True Compendium of the Bad Boys (and Girls) of Western Literature

Rock stars, rappers, and actors haven't always had a monopoly on misbehaving. There was a time when authors fought with both words and fists, a time when poets were the ones living fast and dying young. This witty, insightful, and wildly entertaining narrative profiles the literary greats who wrote generation-defining classics such as The Great Gatsby and On the Road while living and loving like hedonistic rock icons, who were as likely to go on epic benders as they were to hit the bestseller lists. Literary Rogues turns back the clock to consider these historical (and, in some cases, living) legends, including Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bret Easton Ellis. Brimming with fasci- nating research, Literary Rogues is part nostalgia, part literary analysis, and a wholly raucous celebration of brilliant writers and their occasionally troubled legacies.

"Brilliantly chronicles both the excesses and triumphs of some of the most talented and notorious of them all. . . . A relevant examination of the creative personality."