The truth about this degenerate industry

[OppsIdidItAgain]

.

!

?

The 1981 edition of the “Guinness Book of World Records” retold the Victor Hugo story: The shortest literary correspondence on record was that between Victor Marie Hugo (l802-85) and his publisher, Hurst and Blackett, in l862. The author was on holiday and anxious to know how his new novel Les Misérables was selling. He wrote “?”. The reply was ‘!’.

In September 1854 the “Portland Weekly Advertiser” of Maine kept the story circulating by printing a version which roughly specified the locations of the two participants. Interestingly, the first character was an exclamation mark instead of a question mark.