Scorn: The Wickedest Insults in Human History

'He's 100% political herpes. Back in six months whatever you do'

Camilla Long on Nigel Farage

'It's not enough to succeed. Friends must fail'

Gore Vidal

Nothing cuts deeper, or provides greater pleasure, than the perfect put-down.

When it's directed at someone else.

Matthew Parris's sublime collection of the rudest, funniest shin-kicks and barbs in human history, spanning ancient Roman graffiti to social media spats, gleefully cherry-picks the finest work of such masters of scorn as Dorothy Parker, Elizabeth I and A.A. Gill. Together, they offer conclusive proof that verbal abuse can, at its finest, be an exquisite art form.

'He has not a single redeeming defect'

Benjamin Disraeli on William Ewart Gladstone

'The little shit Parris, with his perma-smirk'

Alastair Campbell, on the editor of this book