Dictation, by Cynthia Ozick

The amanuenses of Joseph Conrad and Henry James meet by accident and one, unnervingly conniving as she is, convinces the other timid one to participate in a plot that she believes will make them immortal, in a certain sense (the literary sense). I was slightly enthralled by this piece of inventive historical fiction. But it was also disturbing. Anything that makes me believe in human nature a little less is disturbing.

I haven't read much further in this collection of novellas.