Did Amanda McKittrick Ros Write the Worst Novel Ever?

By Jason Boog 

What is the worst book ever written? For the last century, many readers have argued that Amanda McKittrick Ros wrote the worst books ever.

Download a free copy of Ros’ Irene Iddesleigh novel and decide for yourself. Published in 1887, the book has a long history among critics. In his Kindle Single “Epic Fail,” author Mark O’Connell rounded up some famous fans of Ros’ unique “accidental surrealism.” Here’s an excerpt:

There were Amanda McKittrick Ros societies at Oxford and Cambridge. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their fellow Inklings were largely responsible for this enthusiasm: the informal Oxford literary group held sporadic Ros reading competitions, in which the winner was the member who could read from one of her novels for the longest without breaking into laughter … She was a sort of Bizarro World Oscar Wilde: an Irish author who became a London cause célèbre for the complete witlessness of her writing. Her fame even reached the shores of the New World, with no less a figure than Mark Twain crowning her “Queen & Empress of the Hogwash Guild.”