Dimensions
130 x 197 x 23mm
An utterly gripping work that brings alive the characters at the centre of literary forgery.
Whilst defining the very meaning of forgery, Nick Groom ranges from the economic forgery of the 18th century, where the forgery of a £100 banknote could mean death by hanging, to the formation of literary copyright which was established not in order to protect the nation's authors, but rather as a way of censoring them.
At the centre of Groom's book are the figures of literary forgery that have haunted both our literature and our imaginations for years. There is Chatterton: the fatal model for the Romantic perceived as a mad, unrecognised, and suicidal genius but one whose supposedly tragic life was as much myth as the 15th century monk he invented.
Or there is Macpherson: constantly at war with Samuel Johnson who edited (or wrote, or indeed forged) the lost epics of a third-century Celtic bard; there is the forger William Henry Ireland who not only wrote two new and disastrous Shakespeare plays but also forged a legal document to make sure he benefited from the royalties; and finally there is the famous Wainewright who was a supreme forger in practically every sphere whose effect on literature from Dickens to Wilde to the early 21st century cannot be underestimated.
