In 2013 more than eighty Internet sites round the world took up the story of A.D.Harvey's literary spoofs following his outing in The Times Literary Supplement, thereby further outraging an academic establishment which had had it in for him ever since he had broken ranks by obtaining a Ph.D. at Cambridge only six years after sitting his A-levels. The author of eight scholarly monographs, numerous articles in academic quarterlies, three novels and a slim volume of verse, A.D.Harvey is (despite occasional spoofs) a serious if sometimes idiosyncratic writer and his gift for style, cogency and psychological insight is demonstrated by a collection of his short stories and other pieces now published under the title Side Stories by Mandrake of Oxford.