Literary forgery (also known as literary mystification, literary fraud or literary hoax) is writing, such as a manuscript or a literary work, which is either deliberately misattributed to a historical or invented author, or is a purported memoir or other presumably nonfictional writing deceptively presented as true when, in fact, it presents untrue or imaginary information or content. These deceptive practices have a long history and have occurred across various literary traditions, often with significant cultural or financial impacts.
Literary forgeries can take many forms, including works that are falsely claimed to be ancient texts by known authors, fabricated memoirs, or fictional accounts presented as historical records. The reasons for creating literary forgeries can vary, including the pursuit of financial gain, the desire for literary recognition, or the promotion of specific ideological views.
While literary forgeries are often exposed and discredited, they can nevertheless have outsized impacts in shaping cultural and historical narratives.
History Literary forgery may involve the work of a famous author whose writings have an established intrinsic, as well as monetary value. In an attempt to gain the rewards of such a reputation, the forger often engages in two distinct activities. The forger produces a writing which resembles the style of the known reputable author to whom the fake is to be attributed. The forger may also fake the physical alleged original manuscript. This is less common, as it requires a great deal of technical effort, such as imitating the ink and paper. The forger may also claim that, not only is the style of writing the same, but also that the ink and paper are of the kind or type used by the famous author. Other common types of literary forgery may draw upon the potential historical cachet and novelty of a previously undiscovered author.
Literary forgery has a long history. Onomacritus (c. 530 – 480 BCE) is among the most ancient known literary forgers. He created prophecies, which he ascribed to the poet Musaeus.B. Ehrman, Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, HarperOne (2011), pp. 39-40 In the 4th century BCE, Axiopistus created forgeries he attributed to 5th-century BCE writer Epicharmus of Kos.
In the 3rd century CE, a certain Septimius produced what appeared to be a Latin translation of an eyewitness account of the Trojan War by Dictys of Crete. In the letter of dedication, the translator gave additional credence to the document by claiming the Greek original had come to light during Nero's reign when Dictys' tomb was opened by an earthquake and his diary was discovered. Septimius then claimed the original had been handed to the governor of Crete, Rutilius Rufus, who gave the diary to Nero during his tour of Greece in 66-67 CE. According to historian Miriam Griffin, such bogus and romantic claims to antiquity were not uncommon at the time.Nero: The end of a Dynasty, Miram T. Griffin, 1984. Chapter 9.
One of the longest lasting literary forgeries is by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a 5th-6th century Syrian mystical writer who claimed to be a disciple of Paul the Apostle. Five hundred years later, Abelard expressed doubts about the authorship, but it was not until after the Renaissance that there was general agreement that the attribution of the work was false. In the intervening 1,000 years, the writings had much theological influence.Sarah Coakley (Editor), Charles M. Stang (Editor), Re-thinking Dionysius the Areopagite, Wiley-Blackwell (2009),
Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770), the English poet and letter writer, began his medieval forgeries when little more than a child. While they brought him praise and fame after his death, his writing afforded little in the way of financial success and he died, possibly by suicide, aged 17, penniless, alone and half-starved.
The English Mercurie appeared to be the first English newspaper when it was discovered in 1794. This was, ostensibly, an account of the English battle with the Spanish Armada of 1588, but was, in fact, written in the 18th century by Philip Yorke, 2nd Earl of Hardwicke, as a literary game with his friends.Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Volume 9, January 18, 1840, pp. 17-19
Thomas James Wise (1859-1937) was long regarded as one of the most respected private book collectors in Britain, and his Ashley Library attracted scholars from Europe and the United States. Known for exposing literary fraud and denying involvement in book dealing, Wise enjoyed a strong reputation until 1934. That year, John W. Carter and Henry Graham Pollard demonstrated that dozens of valuable nineteenth-century pamphlets linked to Wise were forged. Later investigations uncovered further misconduct, including altering rare books with pages stolen from copies held by the British Museum.
Literary forgery was promoted as a creative method by Charles Nodier and, in the 19th century, many writers produced literary forgeries under his influence, notably Prosper Merimee and Pierre Louys.
20th century to present American authors Witter Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke, both writing under pseudonyms, published Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments in 1916. They intended it as satire of Imagism. The book included a manifesto for an invented "Spectrist" school. The hoax was exposed in 1917.
Ernest Lalor "Ern" Malley was a fictitious poet invented by Australian writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart to lampoon a modernist art and literary movement centered around a journal called Angry Penguins. The authors created "Malley's" body of work in one day in 1943 and Angry Penguins devoted an issue to the poet. The Ern Malley hoax became the most famous hoax of Australian literary history.
I, Libertine began as a hoax perpetrated by radio host Jean Shepherd in coordination with his listeners, whom he instructed to contact local bookstores to ask for the "raunchy historical romance" by the fictitious author Frederick R. Ewing, said to be "a retired Royal Naval officer resident in Rhodesia and expert in eighteenth-century erotica." The ensuing scandal became so widely known that Ballantine Books commissioned Theodore Sturgeon to make it into a real book, which Ballantine published in 1956.
Newsday reporter Mike McGrady collaborated with other authors to produce a popular novel "so trashy and irredeemable that it could not be defended on any sort of critical grounds." McGrady deemed of its creation, "There will be an unremitting emphasis on sex. Also, true excellence in writing will be quickly blue-penciled into oblivion.” The result was Naked Came the Stranger by “Penelope Ashe." The book was published by Lyle Stuart in 1969. It sold 20,000 copies by the time McGrady revealed the hoax, at which point it quickly sold another 90,000 copies.
John Samuel Humble, known as “Wearside Jack,” carried out a hoax during the investigation of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. In 1978 he sent letters and an audio tape to police claiming to be the killer. Investigators treated the messages as genuine, diverting attention away from the real murderer, Peter Sutcliffe. Humble was obsessed with Jack the Ripper and plagiarized language and phrases from letters sent to police during the investigation of the Whitechapel murders in the 1880s. The deception contributed to major investigative errors and remained undiscovered for decades. Humble was identified through DNA evidence and convicted in 2006. He pleaded guilty to four counts of perverting justice, and at the trial Leeds Crown Court heard allegations that the delays caused by the hoax may have enabled Peter Sutcliffe to murder three additional women.
Konrad Kujau, an East German forger, created diaries purportedly written by Adolf Hitler. His forgeries, executed from 1981 to 1983, passed initial scrutiny. The magazine Stern purchased them at great expense, but various errors and closer forensic analysis revealed them as fakes. Kujau was subsequently sent to prison for fraud, theft and forgery.
Mark Hofmann was an American forger whose crimes combined literary deception with murder. During the 1970s and 1980s, he created highly convincing forged historical documents, many connected to early Mormon history. Among his most famous fabrications was the so-called “Salamander Letter,” which challenged accepted narratives of the church’s origins and deceived collectors, scholars, and religious institutions. As doubts about his documents grew and his financial schemes began to unravel, Hofmann planted bombs in 1985 to prevent exposure. The attacks killed two people and injured others, including Hofmann himself. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.In 2021 Netflix released a true crime documentary series, Murder Among the Mormons, about Hoffman. One of the creators, Jared Hess commented the impact of Hofmann's forgeries: We live in a world of misinformation. And a lot of the material that Hofmann was producing [evoked] a very visceral, emotional response—especially as it related to church documents, where you had a history that everybody believed to be true about the origins of the church. In this day and age, we have to be so careful about the narratives that we choose to believe and we have to dig a little deeper and not just accept them on an emotional level because it feels right. Otherwise we can really be led down a path that will end in tragedy.
Stewart Home explored the literary hoax as an anarchist art form in the 1980s and 1990s. One of his published fabrications resulted in the arrest of The KLF musician Jimmy Cauty on weapons charges. Home's literary pranks were collected in Confusion Incorporated: A Collection of Lies, Hoaxes & Hidden Truths (Codex, 1999).
Lee Israel was an American writer who became known for literary forgery in the early 1990s. Facing financial problems and a declining career after an unsuccessful biography of cosmetics mogul Estée Lauder, she forged letters attributed to famous authors and celebrities such as Dorothy Parker, Noël Coward and Louise Brooks, imitating their styles and inventing anecdotes to attract collectors. She later altered genuine letters as well. Her forgeries deceived collectors, entered archival collections, and circulated in the market as genuine historical documents. Her activities were eventually uncovered, resulting in criminal charges and later becoming the subject of her memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me?.
Laura Albert wrote novels in the late 1990s and early 2000s under the literary persona JT LeRoy. While literary personas are not necessarily hoaxes, LeRoy was promoted as having produced autobiographical fiction as a gay man. Because it was impossible for LeRoy to make public appearances, Albert invented another persona, Emily "Speedie" Frasier, who was supposedly LeRoy's roommate and would appear on his behalf. Albert's real identity was exposed by the magazine New York. Albert signed a contract with the name JT LeRoy with a film company for an adaptation of her novel Sarah. This resulted in a lawsuit that was decided against the author.
The Wanda Koolmatrie hoax caused a literary scandal in Australia. In 1994, the novel My Own Sweet Time was published as the autobiographical story of an Aboriginal woman named Wanda Koolmatrie, supposedly a member of the Stolen Generations. The book received praise and won literary awards. In 1997, however, “Wanda Koolmatrie” was revealed to be a fabricated identity created by a white taxi driver, Leon Carmen. Carmen later claimed he used the false identity because he believed publishers discriminated against white male authors.