[dighton]

... the limericks, some of which cannot be reproduced in a family-oriented newspaper ...

Then you have his squeaky-clean limericks, published under the name Victor Gray. For instance,

While visiting Arundel Castle
I sent my sick uncle a parcel.
The contents of it
Were the local grey grit
To rub on his sore metatarsal.

and

One morning old Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Was wanting a trip in a punt;
But the puntmen had struck,
So he shouted ‘Good luck!
—Your wage is a social affront!’

[MozarkDawg]

Then you have his squeaky-clean limericks ...

Awm c'mon, where's the fun in those??

"There once was a girl from Nantucket ..."

[Billthedrill]

Many thanks for the ping - a wonderful article about a true giant. The Great Terror remains the definitive work on the topic, and Harvest of Sorrow gave me nightmares.

It turns out not to be Conquest but his friend Kingsley Amis who proposed the new title for an updated version of The Great Terror - "I Told You So You F***ing Fools." Amis's son Martin (another friend of Hitchens) paid homage to that book in the subtitle of his Koba The Dread: Laughter And The 20 Million.

Oh, and the article misquotes his "Seven Ages" limerick - it's actually "Seven Ages: first puking and mewling/ Then very p*ssed off with one's schooling..."