The Stars' Tennis Balls is a psychological thriller novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 2000. In the United States, the title was changed to Revenge. In the afterword to the 2003 American edition, Fry admits that the story "is a straight steal, virtually identical in all but period and style to Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo" but denies plagiarism, since Dumas also admits that the plot was taken from a contemporary urban legend.
The original title comes from a quotation taken from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, which reads: "We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them." The novel is dedicated "To M'Colleague" (meaning Hugh Laurie, "M'Colleague" being the name by which Fry and Laurie referred to each other in their TV show A Bit of Fry and Laurie).
Read more about The Stars' Tennis Balls: Plot Summary, Character Allusions/references, Reception, See Also, References
Famous quotes containing the words tennis and/or balls:
“The boneless quality of English conversation, which, so far as I have heard it, is all form and no content. Listening to Britons dining out is like watching people play first-class tennis with imaginary balls.”
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“If the head is lost, all that perishes is the individual; if the balls are lost, all of human nature perishes.”
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