Fire on the mount?

Perhaps we're all oversensitive, but a clever marketing campaign by a publisher last week set off at least a small alarm bell at The Mount, the Lenox home of novelist Edith Wharton, according to an item today in Publishers Weekly's online edition.

It seems Algonquin Books, promoting a new novel called "An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes in New England," by Brock Clarke, mailed a letter to book-review editors around the country addressed to a "Mr. Pulsifer," signed by one "Beatrice Hutchins" of Lenox, asking Pulsifer to "burn down Edith Wharton's house." Pulsifer and Hutchins are fictional characters.

The Boston Globe hasn't received this letter, but PW did, and called The Mount to ask about it. According to a story on publishersweekly.com by Rachel Deahl, Mount officials, who had heard about the letter, were sufficiently puzzled and curious to call the state police. When told by PW that it was a publicity stunt, Mount official Susan Wissler was much mollified, and even told PW that the home would be interested in having the author pay a visit.

Two other letters evidently are in the mail, one of which mentions the burning down of Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst. The galley of the September book is to follow later. An Algonquin spokesman said the letters are "clearly fictitious and written in an over-the-top, playful manner -- and refer to events that never happened." One thing happened, though -- the book got a mention in PW and in "Off the Shelf."