Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860–1939)

Amanda McKittrick Ros was the pen name of Anna Margaret Ross, née McKittrick, born in Drumaness, County Down, Ireland. She attended Marlborough Teacher Training College in Dublin, and became a teacher in Larne, where she met and married Andrew Ross, the local stationmaster. In 1897, she published her first novel, Irene Iddesleigh, at her own expense. It received widespread attention and mockery after the poet and critic Barry Pain wrote a sarcastic review of it for the London journal Black & White. Mark Twain called the book "one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time." She went on to produce poetry and three more novels that were judged equally harshly. Literary societies in the UK held reading competitions in which the winner was the person who could read from one of her novels for the longest without breaking into laughter. Today she is believed by many to be the worst fiction writer in history.