1. John Cheever, Journals.

    Cheever, a fairly famous short-story writer and alcoholic, wrote extensively for The New Yorker.

  2. Richard Feynman, Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman?

    The author, who won a Nobel Prize for physics, is encouraging his wife to send white powder to the Los Alamos laboratory through the post as a joke. Don't try this now.

  3. Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson.

    Mr Abimelech V. Oover, a Rhodes Scholar as Clinton later was, apologises at length for his brevity.

  4. Montesquieu, Lettres persanes.

    Rica meets a mathematician on the Pont-Neuf. The author used to be depicted on a French banknote.

  5. Chatterton, A Broder of Orderys Blacke.

    A famous Bristolian faker tries his hand at Chaucer. Wordsworth refers to Chatterton as "the marvellous Boy".

  6. Georg Büchner, Dantons Tod.

    Danton's death (by guillotine) took place on April 5th, 1794

  7. Giosue Carducci, Da Desenzano.

    Perhaps Carducci counts as once famous. Here, in his Odi barbare, he is rightly feeling inferior to Catullus. But he did win a Nobel Prize for Literature, and may be said to have deserved it.

  8. Raymond Chandler, The long Good-bye.

    Set, of course, in or near LA.

  9. Vladimir Nabokov, The Defense.

    The Italian is the the chess opponent that the Russian protagonist fears, although his real opponents are inside his mind.

  10. Philip Larkin, Water.

    Oook! signifies a librarian, such as Larkin.