Poison pen letter

An anonymous poison pen letter to a former teacher. The German text says: You ... [ass]. We are glad not to have you at our school any longer. The letter also contained the mask pictured here.

A poison pen letter is a letter or note containing unpleasant, abusive or malicious statements or accusations about the recipient or a third party. It is usually sent anonymously. Poison pen letters are usually composed and sent to upset the recipient. They differ from blackmail, which is intended to obtain something, in that they are purely malicious.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation used poison pen letters as a tactic during their COINTELPRO projects, targeting people such as Martin Luther King Jr. Some politicians, such as Harvey Milk, as well as many celebrities, have often received poison pen letters.

With the advent of e-mail and the general decline in letter writing, poison pen letters have become something of a rarity.^{[citation needed]}

In literature and film

• Poison pen letters are a main theme in Dorothy Sayers' novel Gaudy Night, Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger, Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau, John Dickson Carr's Night at the Mocking Widow, and Enid Blyton's children's book The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters.
• In Stieg Larsson's book The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, from his Millennium Trilogy, one of the main characters receives anonymous threatening letters from a sender she nicknames "Poison Pen".
• In Paul Magrs's book Something Borrowed, the protagonist begins an investigation into the sender of a poison pen letter.
• In the James Bond film Octopussy, Bond (Roger Moore) jokes that a new gadget, a pen with acidic ink, is "perfect for writing poison pen letters." The gadget's provider, Q, irritatedly responds "Pay attention, 007."

See also

• Hate mail
• Chain letter
• Stalking