Famous Book Forgeries — The Most Notorious Cases in Literary History

Book forgery — the deliberate creation of false bibliographic objects intended to deceive — is as old as the trade in rare books itself. The history of literary forgery includes some of the most remarkable stories in the world of collecting: brilliant scholars who were also criminal fraudsters, forgeries that went undetected for decades, and investigations that pioneered new methods of authentication. These cases matter not only as cautionary tales but as the crucible in which modern bibliographic methods were forged.

Thomas J. Wise (1859–1937)

The Crime

Thomas J. Wise was one of the most respected bibliographers and book collectors of the late Victorian and Edwardian era. He compiled bibliographies of major English authors, served as president of the Bibliographical Society, and assembled the Ashley Library, one of the finest private book collections in England (now at the British Library).

He was also, for over four decades, the most prolific forger of literary pamphlets in history.

Beginning in the 1880s, Wise manufactured at least 50 fabricated pamphlets — small publications purportedly printed as private editions or advance printings of works by Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Kipling, Ruskin, George Eliot, and others. His method was ingenious: he invented plausible bibliographic histories for these pamphlets (claiming they were privately printed for the author or published in small numbers before the first trade edition), then slipped them into his own authoritative bibliographies, effectively creating both the forgery and the scholarly authority that validated it.

For example, Wise created a pamphlet purporting to be an 1847 edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, predating the known first publication. He then included this fabrication in his bibliography of Browning, giving it the imprimatur of scholarly authentication.

Detection

The forgeries went unquestioned for decades because Wise had embedded their descriptions in his own reference works — the very tools scholars and dealers used to identify genuine publications.

In 1934, John Carter and Graham Pollard published An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets, one of the landmark works of bibliographic detective work. Using chemical analysis of paper (particularly the presence of chemical wood in papers supposedly printed before chemical wood pulp was commercially available), typographic analysis, and circumstantial evidence, they demonstrated that the pamphlets were fraudulent.

Wise denied the charges until his death in 1937, but subsequent investigation confirmed the full scope of his forgeries.

Significance

The Wise case transformed bibliographic scholarship by demonstrating that physical and chemical analysis of paper, ink, and type could expose forgeries that had withstood decades of visual examination. It also illustrated the danger of trusting any single authority — even the most distinguished bibliographer could be a forger.

Mark Hofmann (1954–present)

The Crime

Mark Hofmann was a Salt Lake City dealer in historical documents who, in the early 1980s, produced a series of spectacularly successful forgeries of American historical documents and early Mormon manuscripts. His forgeries were so skillful that they fooled the Library of Congress, major auction houses, and expert document examiners.

Hofmann’s forgeries included:

• The “Anthon Transcript” — A purported early Mormon document that Hofmann claimed was a copy of characters from the golden plates described in the Book of Mormon.
• A letter by Martin Harris describing Joseph Smith’s use of a “salamander” in discovering the golden plates — the so-called “Salamander Letter,” which challenged orthodox Mormon historical narratives.
• Documents attributed to Daniel Boone, Betsy Ross, and other early American figures.

Hofmann used period-correct paper (often blank endpapers from period books), manufactured period-appropriate inks using 19th-century formulas, and developed techniques to artificially age documents so convincingly that standard authentication methods failed.

The Murders

When his financial scheme began to collapse — he had sold forgeries for hundreds of thousands of dollars but was running out of plausible “discoveries” and had taken on debts he could not repay — Hofmann built pipe bombs. On October 15, 1985, he killed two people: Steven Christensen, a document collector who was pressing him on suspicious acquisitions, and Kathy Sheets, the wife of Christensen’s business partner (killed in a misdirected attack). Hofmann himself was injured when a third bomb detonated in his car.

Detection and Conviction

The bombing investigation led to scrutiny of Hofmann’s document dealing. Forensic document examiners, using advanced techniques including cyclotron analysis of ink chemistry, eventually determined that many of Hofmann’s documents were forgeries. He pleaded guilty to murder and fraud charges in 1987 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Significance

The Hofmann case demonstrated that even the most sophisticated forger could not perfectly replicate historical documents. The advanced forensic techniques developed to examine Hofmann’s forgeries — particularly ink composition analysis — became standard tools in document authentication. The case also forced the rare document market to adopt more rigorous provenance requirements.

The Galileo Forgery (2012/2017)

A supposedly unique copy of Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius (1610) with watercolor illustrations purportedly by Galileo himself surfaced in 2005 and was authenticated by a respected scholar who published a monograph celebrating the discovery. The book was valued at millions of dollars.

In 2012, Nick Wilding, a historian at Georgia State University, demonstrated that the book was a forgery, likely produced by Marino Massimo De Caro, an Italian book collector who was simultaneously serving as director of the Girolamini Library in Naples (from which he was also stealing books). The paper was genuine 17th-century stock, but the printing and illustrations were modern.

This case highlighted the danger of single-expert authentication and the importance of independent verification.

John Drewe and John Myatt (1986–1995)

While primarily an art forgery case, the Drewe-Myatt scheme has relevance to book collecting because John Drewe’s method of authentication was to forge provenance documentation — inserting false records into the archives of major institutions (the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum) to create paper trails for forged paintings. This demonstrated that provenance itself could be forged, a lesson directly applicable to the rare book world.

Spain’s Fake Incunabula

In 1992, it was discovered that a number of “incunabula” — books supposedly printed before 1501 — held by Spanish institutions were modern forgeries produced in the 19th or early 20th century on old paper. The forgeries were sophisticated enough to have been cataloged in the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, the comprehensive catalog of incunabula. Detection required close analysis of type, which was identified as modern despite its antiquated appearance.

What Forgery Cases Teach Us

No Authority Is Infallible

Wise was a president of the Bibliographical Society. Hofmann fooled the Library of Congress. Experts at major institutions authenticated the Galileo forgery. The lesson is not that expertise is worthless — it is essential — but that uncritical reliance on any single authority, however distinguished, is dangerous.

Physical Analysis Is Essential

Every major forgery detection has involved physical and chemical analysis of the materials:

• Paper testing — Fiber analysis, watermark examination, chemical wood detection
• Ink analysis — Chemical composition, age characteristics, UV fluorescence
• Typographic analysis — Comparison with known genuine type from the alleged period and printer
• Microscopy — Surface examination revealing modern printing methods

Provenance Must Be Verified Independently

Forgers (Wise, Hofmann, Drewe) all fabricated provenance as part of their schemes. Provenance documentation should be verified independently, not taken at face value.

Financial Incentives Drive Forgery

The most ambitious forgeries target the most valuable material. When a “discovery” seems too good to be true — an unknown Shakespeare quarto, a previously unknown Galileo manuscript — skepticism is appropriate.

Detection Methods Improve Over Time

Many forgeries that fooled contemporaries have been detected by subsequent generations using improved analytical methods. This suggests that some currently accepted items may eventually be exposed as forgeries — a humbling thought for any collector.

Protecting Yourself

1. Buy from reputable sources — ABAA/ABA/ILAB members offer return privileges and professional standards.
2. Consult bibliographic references — Verify that the item matches the physical description in the relevant bibliography.
3. Seek independent opinions — For high-value purchases, consult more than one expert.
4. Be skeptical of remarkable discoveries — The rarer and more valuable the item, the more scrutiny it deserves.
5. Request provenance documentation — Ask where the item came from before the current seller acquired it.
6. Use physical examination — Handle the book, examine the paper under UV light, and assess whether the materials are consistent with the purported age and origin.