A poison pen letter is a letter or note containing unpleasant, abusive or malicious statements or accusations about the recipient or a third party. It is usually sent anonymously. Poison pen letters are usually composed and sent to upset the recipient. They differ from blackmail, which is intended to obtain something, in that they are purely malicious.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation used poison pen letters as a tactic during their COINTELPRO projects, targeting people such as Martin Luther King Jr. Some politicians, such as Harvey Milk, as well as many celebrities, have often received poison pen letters.
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Famous quotes containing the words poison, pen and/or letter:
“The vulgarest tool that Tyranny could want,
With just enough of talent, and no more,
To lengthen fetters by another fixed,
And offer poison long already mixed.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“This is no rune nor symbol,
what I mean is it is so simple
yet no trick of the pen or brush
could capture that impression;
what I wanted to indicate was
a new phase, a new distinction of colour.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Of all the barbarous middle ages, that
Which is most barbarous is the middle age
Of man! it is—I really scarce know what;
But when we hover between fool and sage,
And don’t know justly what we would be at—
A period something like a printed page,
Black letter upon foolscap, while our hair
Grows grizzled, and we are not what we were.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)