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Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature comprises essays which revise the position of the forged text in the literary tradition and, in light of modern approaches of philology and literary criticism, offer exciting new strategies for understanding forgery and the play with authenticity within ancient literature itself.

The ultimate reader's-guide to the works that fooled publishers, readers, and critics the world over--from Dionysius the Renegade to modern publishing pranks such as the Hitler Diaries.

James Macpherson’s “poems of Ossian”, first published from 1760 as Fragments of Ancient Poetry, were the literary sensation of the age. Attacked by Samuel Johnson and others as “forgeries”, nonetheless the poems enthralled readers around the world, attracting rapturous admiration from figures as diverse as Goethe, Diderot, Jefferson, Bonaparte and Mendelssohn. This International Companion examines the social, political and philosophical context of the poems, their disputed origins, their impact on world literature, and the various critical afterlives of Macpherson and of his literary works.

\"It's about hoaxes in Canadian culture. It shows how some contemporary artists and writers disrupt the curatorial and authorial practices of Canada's most respected cultural institutions (art galleries, museums, publishers) in order to foment and celebrate discomfort, imagination, empathy, and change.\"-- Provided by publisher.

The Myth of Ephraim Tutt explores the true and previously untold story behind one of the most elaborate literary hoaxes in American history. Arthur Train was a Harvard-educated and well-respected attorney. He was also a best-selling author. Train’s greatest literary creation was the character Ephraim Tutt, a public-spirited attorney and champion of justice.Guided by compassion and a strong moral compass, Ephraim Tutt commanded a loyal following among general readers and lawyers alike—in fact, Tutt’s fictitious cases were so well-known that attorneys, judges, and law faculty cited them in courtrooms and legal texts. People read Tutt’s legal adventures for more than twenty years, all the while believing their beloved protagonist was merely a character and that Train’s stories were works of fiction. But in 1943 a most unusual event occurred: Ephraim Tutt published his own autobiography. The possibility of Tutt’s existence as an actual human being became a source of confusion, spurring heated debates. One outraged reader sued for fraud, and the legendary lawyer John W. Davis rallied to Train’s defense. While the public questioned whether the autobiography was a hoax or genuine, many book reviewers and editors presented the book as a work of nonfiction. In The Myth of Ephraim Tutt Molly Guptill Manning explores the controversy and the impact of the Ephraim Tutt autobiography on American culture. She also considers Tutt’s ruse in light of other noted incidents of literary hoaxes, such as those ensuing from the publication of works by Clifford Irving, James Frey, and David Rorvik, among others. As with other outstanding fictitious characters in the literary canon, Ephraim Tutt took on a life of his own. Out of affection for his favorite creation, Arthur Train spent the final years of his life crafting an autobiography that would ensure Tutt’s lasting influence—and he was spectacularly successful in this endeavor. Tutt, as the many letters written to him attest, gave comfort to his readers as they faced the challenging years of the Great Depression and World War II and renewed their faith in humanity and justice. Although Tutt’s autobiography bewildered some of his readers, the great majority were glad to have read the “life” story of this cherished character.

\"More than ten years after the New York Times unmasked Savannah Knoop as the face of the mysterious author JT LeRoy, her story continues to fascinate. To some, it was a compelling experiment with authorship and identity. To others, it was an unforgivable deception. In Girl Boy Girl, Knoop tells her side of the story, revealing how she came to portray the young trans hustler turned literary wunderkind--a persona created by her sister-in-law, Laura Albert, to help sell her books. For six years Knoop led this bizarre double life, trading a precarious existence as a college dropout for a life in which she was embraced by celebrities and artists--Carrie Fisher, Courtney Love, Mary Ellen Mark, Winona Ryder, Asia Argento, Gus Van Sant, Mike Pitt, Calvin Klein, and Shirley Manson, to name a few--and traveled the world. Knoop reveals how playing JT LeRoy gave her a sense of confidence and entitlement she never had before. But as JT's fame grew, the charade became harder to maintain, and Knoop started to resent \"pretending to be someone who had nothing to do with me, representing something I hadn't created.\" Much more than an inside look at one of the most famous literary hoaxes of all time, this book is also the story of a woman who inadvertently finds herself by pretending to be someone else. This edition of the book features a new introduction by the author, whose story will soon be a major motion picture starring Kristen Stewart as Savannah/JT.\"--Provided by publisher.

Scholars for centuries have regarded fakes and forgeries chiefly as an opportunity for exposing and denouncing deceit, rather than appreciating the creative activity necessary for such textual imposture. But should we not be more curious about what is spurious? Many of these long-neglected texts merit serious reappraisal, when considered as artifacts with a value beyond mere authenticity. We do not have to be fooled by a forgery to find it fascinating, when even the intention to deceive can remind us how easy it is to form beliefs about texts. The greater difficulty is that once beliefs have been formed by one text, it is impossible to approach the next without preconceptions potentially disastrous for scholarship. The exposure of fraud and the pursuit of truth may still be valid scholarly goals, but they implicitly demand that we confront the status of any text as a focal point for matters of belief and conviction. Many new and fruitful avenues of investigation open up when scholars consider forgery as a creative act rather than a crime. We invited authors to contribute work without imposing any restrictions beyond a willingness to consider new approaches to the subject of ancient fakes and forgeries. The result is this volume, in which our aim is to display some of the many possibilities available to scholarship when the forger is regarded as \"splendide mendax\" - splendidly untruthful.

\"In Forgers and Critics, Anthony Grafton provides a wide-ranging exploration of the links between forgery and scholarship. Labeling forgery the \"criminal sibling\" of criticism, Grafton describes a panorama of remarkable individuals--forgers from classical Greece through the recent past--who produced a variety of splendid triumphs of learning and style, as well as the scholarly detectives who honed the tools of scholarship in attempts to unmask these skillful fakers. In the process, Grafton discloses the extent, the coherence, and the historical interest of two significant and tightly intertwined strands in the Western intellectual tradition\"-- Provided by publisher.

James Macpherson's Poems of Ossian, said to be translations from the Gaelic of a third-century bard, caused a sensation on their first appearance in the early 1760s.Contrary to the impression often conveyed in literary histories, enthusiasm for the poetry of the 'Homer of the North' cannot be dismissed as a short-lived fad, for its appeal lasted.