Forgery ranked with murder as a capital crime well into the 19th century. Faked texts and signatures could falsify wills and violate the sanctity of property, until photolithography, then typing, devalued the uniqueness of the handwritten text. But a modern forger can still make a decent profit by turning out the fake-historical or fake-literary stuff that collectors strangely hanker for, and news- papers sometimes eagerly swallow.
This book about Mark Hofmann, a leading forger and a real-life weirdo worthy of the great Elmore Leonard’s inventions, uncovers an especially American world in which literature, religion, lying, cheating, greed, gullibility and, eventually, murder are combined. The murders are shocking. To be shocked by Hofmann’s other crimes you need to answer Yes to three questions: Do you think Emily Dickinson an inimitable poet? Do you take Mormons seriously? Do you think the London and Manhattan auction houses sell only what they know to be genuine?
The Dickinson story is a po-faced comedy about the market for literary artefacts, dominated by the colleges and museums which acquire esteem by buying up authors’ drafts and jottings – more of a boon to writers than to scholarship.
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