Edmund Wilson's all-purpose "get lost" letter

Edmund Wilson's all-purpose bugger-off reply. (Via Tim Ferriss)

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Anonymous

Ever seen Heinlein’s form letter response?

http://io9.com/5048215/robert-heinleins-bizarre-fan-mail-response-letter
TokenFrenchDude

Wow. I’ve read about a French author who had a similar kind of automated answer.. I check my books to see who came up with it first. :)
Anonymous2368

re: “I’d swear that I’ve seen something similar to this, maybe on BB.”

Heinlein’s fan-mail solution: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/09/heinleins-fanmail-so.html
Halloween Jack

I’d swear that I’ve seen something similar to this, maybe on BB.

Also, lectroid: despite the F-word, “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script” was, in fact, a very polite essay which cited a specific situation in which Josh Olsen went out of his way to critique the work of an acquaintance and, for his troubles, got called a dick. The title is just his way of being as blunt upfront as Wilson is above.
Maggie Koerth-Baker

This just totally renews the teenage crush I had on Edmund Wilson. Bless you, Bunny.
hep cat

Now Edmund Wilson will be getting all manner of requests from people wanting these nifty all-purpose “get lost” letters.
efalk

Reminds me of the old “bonehead reply form” that used to be so popular.
Antinous / Moderator

I’d love to see one for doctors.

- Look at your rash
- Discuss your bowel movements…
semiotix

Simon Singh’s book on Fermat’s Last Theorem had a pair of good examples along these lines. Prominent math professors would get inundated with crackpot “proofs,” so one of them printed up cards that read, “The first error in your submission occurs on line ______ of page _____ thereby invalidating the entire proof.”

But that wasn’t nearly as good as the guy who had a form letter saying, “Your work is so advanced that I do not feel myself qualified to pass judgment on it. Instead, I refer you to the acknowledged expert on such work,” and then the name and mailing address of the previous crackpot to write in.
- querent
  
  wow that rules.
  
  i know i keep talking about Cantor tonight, but there’s a guy out there somewhere who has this “proof” that C = aleph_naught. i wish i was well known enough to have him send it to me to review so i could rip this idea off.
  
  (if your reading, dude, every point in your “tree” is rational. it’s the “end” of the branches that we’re interested in. brush up on the concept of a limit. first year calculus might help. (sorry bb. had to vent.))
JoshP

yeah, but only if below it had a.

–for a broad spectrum anti-biotic because I’m not an idiot and know when I have a bad infection my ownself.

– I really am not that trustworthy with painkillers but this time my d**m hand is broke… K’
Anonymous

http://www.pvponline.com/2009/11/04/dear-kurt/
Anonymous

Maybe link to http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/10/07/edmund-wilson-letter/ instead of Wilson’s wiki entry twice?
Anonymous

What is the name of that font?
- Lady Katey
  
  I’m going to take a guess at Futura.
gpeare

Dear old Bunny. What a card.
lectroid

Notice that this is accomplished without the outright rudeness and open hostility that entires such as “No I Will Not Read Your Fucking Screenplay” seem to revel in.

There’s something to be said for a little bit of class.
- Tdawwg
  
  Notice that this is accomplished without the outright rudeness and open hostility….
  
  He saved those for his paid journalism, as in his woeful, sadly ignorant attack on Nabokov’s Eugene Onegin translation. Here’s how he ends:
  
  Finally, it ought to be said that these volumes have been admirably produced. They are not, like so many American books, tastelessly bound and too heavy, with pages of type so wide that the eye finds it an effort to follow the line. The ordinary New York publisher would no doubt have crammed all the material into a single volume which would have been cumbersome to carry around, to travel with, to read in bed. But these volumes, with their narrow measure and their sharp and distinguished type, together with their sky-blue covers and their titles stamped in gold on red, are among the most attractive books that have recently been brought out in this country.
  
  What a jerk! And imagine, trying to school Nabokov on Russian literature! Should have sent the form letter, Bunny!
  
  Nabokov’s delightful, devastating reply is also at the NYRB site, worth reading. Wilson’s problem was that he could hide his assholishness successfully to himself: Nabokov, wonderfully, never bothered to hide, ever.