Betjeman Letter Hoax
In August 2006 a rival biography of Betjeman was published by A. N. Wilson. It was later discovered to contain a hoax letter, purportedly by Betjeman, but actually containing an acrostic insulting Wilson. The letter had been sent to Wilson by "Eve de Harben", an anagram of "Ever been had?", and the first letters of each sentence, beginning with the second sentence, spelled out the message "A.N. Wilson is a shit." Hillier was an immediate suspect: the Sunday Times article revealing the hoax was accompanied by a prominent picture of Hillier and noted that an envelope containing a letter supposedly from de Harben to the newspaper had been bought in Winchester, his home town. Hillier initially denied responsibility, but soon admitted that he had written the letter. He explained that he had been angered by Wilson's negative review of the second volume of his biography of Betjeman, and by pre-publication publicity for Wilson's own biography.
Read more about this topic: Bevis Hillier
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