Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962)
Nabokov's lovely classic Pale Fire isn't just a book about writers writing, it's also a book about rewriters rewriting. In an intricately nested story, Nabokov presents an epic poem about death and the possibility of the afterlife, ostensibly written by an American poet, John Shade. Then he presents the story of how the poem came to be written, and how it came into the hands of Shade's neighbor Charles Kinbote. Finally, Kinbote presents his own editorial explanation of the poem, recasting it all as a metaphorical image of Kinbote and his homeland. Many interpretations of the book have been offered, but the entire thing works beautifully as a smart, skillful satire on the way well-meaning scholars dissect and deconstruct literature, sometimes warping it unrecognizably. On some level, it's a tremendously sad book, raising the question of why writers bother at all, since their intentions may not survive them, and their works become vulnerable the moment they leave the brain and hit the page. But in spite of all the misinterpretation and willful predation, Pale Fire is still a wryly hilarious book, particularly as a portrait of writerly delusion and self-aggrandization.