The Poet and the Murderer

The Poet and the Murderer
by Simon Worrall.
review by E.A. Lombardi

Guide Rating -

Imagine discovering an unknown poem by a great poet like Emily Dickinson. It may shed new light on her life and works! Who would want to think that such a poem could be a forgery? But it was.

It's difficult to guess how many literary forgeries are sold every day, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. With that much money on the line (especially for some of the greatest writers), it's not hard to believe that forgeries are created every day.

In "The Poet and the Murderer," Simon Worrall traces the path of one notorious forger, Mark Hofman, a man who was so adept at his trade that he created thousands of forgeries of historical documents, including faked manuscripts of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and other famous writers. While many of those manuscripts were taken out of circulation, some of his forgeries are still posing as authentic/original manuscripts.

A Short History of Forgery

Literary forgery has been around since ancient times in Egypt, Japan, Athens, and Mesopotamia. While forgery has been used to protect original manuscripts, forgers like Giovanni Nanni, Annius de Viterbo, and Denis Vrain-Lucas had different goals. As Worrall says, Giovanni was the "first forger in the modern sense," and he forged documents "to boost the status of his beloved Etruria." In creating those "sophisticated, forged historical documents," he was following the example of other statesmen who had attempted to magnify the importance of their cities.

Annius took a slightly different approach. After forging inscriptions on pottery, he broke the piece, buried the fragments, and then proceeded to discover his forgeries and prove their authenticity. Worrall says, "Forgers are attracted by the sheer fun, and creativity, of their craft--the scholarship and research, the inventiveness involved in rearranging the jigsaw puzzle of history in new, and surprising ways." Worrall points out Vrain-Lucas, who "forged letters from Alexander the Great to Aristotle, Francis Bacon to Galileo, Richard the Lionhearted to his troubadour, Blondel."

As Worrall writes, "Money is a comparatively recent motive for forgery. Misplaced patriotism; hatred of authority; a longing for social prestige or a need to reinvent oneself have been others. Forgery has been used for religious, financial, and political purposes; to gain influence or discredit an enemy."

Why Emily?

Emily Dickinson is one of the most elusive characters in literary history. Worrall speaks with great certainty--without hesitation--about some of the more controversial details of her life, relationships, works, and death. But, there really is so much that we don't know, will never know, about Emily Dickinson.

Dickinson seems almost like a ghost now: that illusive form in white. She lived in isolation. She once wrote, "I never had a mother." She had that "room of her own," but we don't know why she chose that lifestyle. Perhaps her heart was broken; perhaps her father chased her lover away; perhaps she was emotionally damaged; perhaps she was in love with a woman; perhaps she had an abortion; perhaps she was mad or ill; perhaps... There's so much about her life that is uncertain.

Dickinson's will directed that her letters be destroyed upon her death, so her wishes were carried out. But then, Mabel Todd (Dickinson's friend, and the mistress of her brother) went through her fascicles (collections of poems, stitched together), arranging and standardizing Dickinson's language, while she probably threw away some of the more objectionable works. Of the surviving letters, Todd cut or blacked out whole sections. What could have been that objectionable?

So, Hofman chose Emily. As Worrall says, "Much of Dickinson's life is filled with myth, conjecture, and is unsupported by the historical record. Hofman knew he could fill in the blanks." She became one of his masks, a personae, a means to an end. But, while Dickinson faced her inner demons, as she struggled to come to grips with the truths of life and death, "Hofman became entangled in his own web of lies."