This is a series of spoof letters between two denizens of the literary world. It takes the form of a correspondence between Gerald Marsh, a retired literary man and teacher and his ex-pupil Sir Harvey Marlowe, a grand publisher and biographer. They swap bad jokes, some awfully funny, some funnily awful, anecdotes that make you wince with embarrassment, literary quips that are woeful in their pretentious and unconscious hilarity. Never were two comic heroes so well-versed in literature and yet so gut-wrenchingly stupid. They are not above blackmailing each other, either, as Marsh, gently threatens to reveal "a sordid incident" to a TV programme at the same time as he submits his inordinately long life's work, "Pass the Fruitcake, Iris" - a history of Music Hall Gaffes - to his publishing friend, Sir Harvey Marlowe. Among the literary dilemmas they pose each other are: is Roy Hattersely a great writer, was Virginia Woolf a man? What would a Samuel Beckett Cookbook contain?