Amanda McKittrick Ros

Have you ever visited that portion of Erin's plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength in augmenting its agricultural richness? —Opening lines of Delina Delaney

I first read this sentence nearly three years ago. Since then, I have read it once a week in an increasingly desperate search for meaning. But I still don't understand it. —Nick Page, In Search of the World's Worst Writers, on the above sentence.

The zenith of the nadir of the art of literary craftsmanship, Amanda McKittrick Ros penned prose of a most violet tint, with plots involving sorrow and the ruination of lives.

The Inklings, a gathering of wordsmiths whose ranks included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, had a roaring time with the attempt to see who could go through these works of hers and hold back mirth for more time than others. Some of her specialties:

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Tomes crafted by her pen:

• Irene Iddesleigh (a tale of some length)
• Delina Delaney (a tale of some length)
• Poems of Puncture (containing verse of her crafting)
• Fumes of Formation (containing verse of her crafting)
• Helen Huddleson (a tale of some length)

Tropes employed in her works

• Added Alliterative Appeal
• Giftedly Bad: When you can turn such luminaries as C. S. Lewis and Tolkien into trolls, you have to be something "special."
• Purple Prose: Bow to the queen.
• Meaningless Meaningful Words
• Theme Naming: In Helen Huddleston, many personages of her device have names of a vegetal persuasion.