Forged Literary Manuscripts — The History of Book and Document Forgery

Literary forgery — the creation of fake manuscripts, letters, inscriptions, and printed works attributed to someone who did not produce them — is as old as the book trade itself. The history of forgery reveals not only the ingenuity of the forgers but also the weaknesses in authentication methods and the psychological factors that make experts vulnerable to deception. For collectors, understanding forgery history is the first line of defense against being deceived.

The Anatomy of Literary Forgery

Literary forgeries fall into several categories, each with different methods and motivations:

Forged Manuscripts and Letters

Creating fake handwritten documents purporting to be by a famous author. The forger must replicate the author’s handwriting, use period-appropriate materials (paper, ink), and create content that is plausible in tone and substance.

Forged Signatures and Inscriptions

Adding fake signatures or inscriptions to genuine books. This is the most common form of book forgery because it requires the least skill — only a convincing signature on an already existing book — and produces the greatest financial return (the signature can multiply a book’s value by 10x or more).

Forged Entire Works

Creating complete fabricated works — fake “lost” manuscripts, previously unknown poems, or suppressed texts attributed to famous authors. This is the rarest and most ambitious form of literary forgery.

Sophisticated Forgeries (Materials and Provenance)

The most dangerous forgeries combine fake documents with fabricated provenance — fake bookplates, fake auction records, fake letters of authentication — creating a complete fictional history for the forged item.

Notorious Literary Forgers

Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770)

Chatterton is the earliest literary forger whose story has become legend. As a teenage prodigy in Bristol, he created a body of medieval poetry attributed to a fictional 15th-century monk named Thomas Rowley. The “Rowley poems” were written on old parchment from his father’s church, using a pseudo-medieval English that Chatterton invented.

The forgeries were eventually exposed by Thomas Tyrwhitt and others, but Chatterton’s literary talent was genuine — the poems themselves are remarkable achievements for a teenager. Chatterton poisoned himself with arsenic at age 17, and his tragic story made him a Romantic icon. Keats dedicated Endymion to him; Wordsworth called him “the marvellous Boy.”

Thomas James Wise (1859–1937)

Wise was one of the most respected bibliographers in England — president of the Bibliographical Society, assembler of the magnificent Ashley Library, and compiler of authoritative bibliographies of Tennyson, Browning, and other Victorian authors. He was also a forger.

Working with an accomplice, the printer Richard Clay, Wise produced over 50 forged pamphlets purporting to be rare first printings of works by Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning, Swinburne, Kipling, and others. These “pamphlets” — supposedly printed before the first book publication of the same texts — were bibliographic phantoms: they had never actually existed. Wise created them, gave them false publication dates, and sold or donated them to collectors and libraries.

The exposure came in 1934 when John Carter and Graham Pollard published An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets, which used chemical analysis of paper and typographic analysis of fonts to prove that several pamphlets dated to the 1840s–1860s were actually printed on paper manufactured decades later.

Lesson for collectors: Wise’s forgeries succeeded for decades because he was the leading authority on the very bibliographies he was corrupting. He was simultaneously the forger and the authenticator.

Mark Hofmann (1954–present)

Hofmann is the most technically skilled document forger in American history. Operating in Salt Lake City in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he produced forged documents related to early Mormon history, American literary figures, and other historical subjects. His techniques were extraordinarily sophisticated:

• He manufactured his own iron gall ink from period-appropriate recipes.
• He artificially aged documents using hydrogen peroxide, oven heating, and other chemical treatments.
• He sourced period-appropriate paper by cutting blank endpapers from old books.
• His handwriting imitation was skilled enough to fool leading experts.

Hofmann’s forgeries included the “Salamander Letter” (a fabricated early Mormon document), forged Emily Dickinson poems, and fake letters attributed to numerous historical figures. He sold millions of dollars’ worth of forged documents to collectors and institutions, including the LDS Church.

The scheme collapsed in 1985 when Hofmann, desperate to forestall discovery, murdered two people with pipe bombs — a document dealer and the wife of a potential exposer. The criminal investigation led to the unraveling of his forgery operation. Hofmann was sentenced to life in prison.

Lesson for collectors: Hofmann deceived the world’s leading document experts for years. His forgeries passed every test available at the time. Only his criminal desperation — not authentication failure — led to his exposure.

Lee Israel (1939–2014)

Israel was a biographer who, facing financial desperation, turned to forging literary letters in the early 1990s. She created approximately 400 fake letters attributed to Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward, Edna Ferber, Lillian Hellman, and other literary figures.

Israel’s method was remarkably simple: she used genuine period typewriters (purchased at thrift stores), authentic-looking stationery, and her deep knowledge of her subjects’ writing styles and biographical details to create plausible letters. She sold them through reputable autograph dealers for $100–$500 each.

Israel was eventually caught when a dealer noticed that two letters from different collections had suspiciously similar content. Her memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me? (adapted into a 2018 film), provides an insider’s account of how easily the autograph market can be penetrated by a skilled forger with literary knowledge.

Lesson for collectors: Israel succeeded not through technical sophistication but through literary skill and knowledge of her subjects. The content of the letters was convincing because Israel was a genuine literary scholar.

How Forgeries Are Detected

Scientific Methods

Ink analysis. Modern analytical chemistry can determine the chemical composition of ink. Iron gall inks, ballpoint ink, felt-tip marker ink, and modern dye-based inks all have distinctive chemical signatures. Inks can sometimes be dated by their composition.

Paper analysis. Paper manufactured in different periods uses different raw materials, sizing agents, and bleaching processes. Chemical tests and microscopic examination can determine when paper was made.

Carbon-14 dating. For paper manufactured after 1950, radiocarbon dating can sometimes determine the decade of manufacture by detecting elevated levels of Carbon-14 from atmospheric nuclear testing.

Multispectral imaging. Examining documents under different wavelengths of light (ultraviolet, infrared) can reveal erasures, alterations, and differences in ink that are invisible to the naked eye.

Bibliographic and Textual Methods

Typographic analysis. Typefaces, typesetting practices, and printing technologies are period-specific. A document that claims to be from 1850 but uses a typeface not designed until 1870 is exposed.

Provenance investigation. Tracing the chain of ownership. If a document’s provenance cannot be established beyond the person selling it, suspicion is warranted.

Content analysis. Does the text contain anachronisms — references to events, technologies, or concepts that did not exist at the purported date? Does the style match the attributed author’s known writing?

Expert Knowledge

Handwriting comparison. While not infallible, comparison with known authentic samples remains a primary authentication method.

“Feel” and instinct. Experienced dealers and curators develop an intuitive sense for authenticity that, while not scientifically rigorous, often identifies problems before formal analysis confirms them.

Protecting Yourself

Buy from reputable dealers. ABAA and ILAB member dealers guarantee the authenticity of their offerings and will refund purchases if items prove inauthentic.

Demand provenance. Ask where the item came from before the dealer acquired it. A legitimate item should have a traceable history.

Be skeptical of “discoveries.” When a previously unknown inscription, manuscript, or variant suddenly appears, skepticism is appropriate. Most genuine discoveries come through established channels — estate sales, institutional deaccessioning, long-held private collections — not through anonymous or mysterious sources.

Get independent authentication. For significant purchases, seek authentication from an expert who has no financial interest in the transaction.

Trust your instincts. If something seems too good to be true — a signed first edition of a rare book at a suspiciously low price, a previously unknown manuscript appearing without provenance — it probably is.