One of life's minor mysteries is why successful publishers, as a general rule, make bad writers. Leo Cooper's uproarious autobiography is not exactly the exception that proves that rule, but it does scatter clues like grapeshot as to why editors are editors, authors are authors, and it is much better that the twain should never meet.

I once had an editor whom legend credited with being the man who made Jeffrey Archer publishable by honing his clumping prose into manuscripts that could at least be read with one finger. Leaving aside the question of why this man wasn't arraigned for high crimes against literature, it did