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The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery Hardcover - April 1, 2002
The Poet and the A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery Hardcover - April 1, 2002
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 2002
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About the author
Simon Worrall
39 books47 followersThe author of two highly acclaimed books, THE POET AND THE MURDERER (Dutton & Plume/Penguin Putnam USA, 2002, which William Styron called, “A gripping tale, done with great style and elegance…” and the novelized true story of his mother in World War II, THE VERY WHITE OF LOVE (HarperCollins, 2018), referred to by The Sunday Mirror as “A powerful and tender tale of love and war,” Worrall is a natural storyteller.
Simon was born in Wellington, England in 1951 and spent his childhood in Eritrea, Paris and Singapore. He speaks four languages, including French. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic, and has written for publications all over the world, including the Smithsonian, The London Times and Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler and the New Statesman.
Simon was born in Wellington, England in 1951 and spent his childhood in Eritrea, Paris and Singapore. He speaks four languages, including French. He is a regular contributor to National Geographic, and has written for publications all over the world, including the Smithsonian, The London Times and Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Conde Nast Traveler and the New Statesman.
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June 24, 2015
I was excited to learn that there had been an attempted Dickinson forgery not too long ago. Not only did Mark Hofmann successfully (and profitably) forge Dickinson's writing; he wrote a whole new poem and passed it off as a previously unknown piece of her work.
A "new" Dickinson poem is always a possibility. She left behind a disordered mass of writing that, fortunately for all of us, her sister ignored instructions to destroy and instead set about attempting to publish. This was no easy task for many reasons, including Dickinson's difficult handwriting and her sister's eventual choice of editors -- namely, her brother's mistress. That brother's wife didn't appreciate this choice at all -- and she happened to live right next door, and had her own copies of plenty of Dickinson's poems.
More about this in my upcoming review of Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds. Suffice to say, no writer has ever had a more bizarre publication history than Dickinson. Lots of court battles; hatred passed down to the next generation; trunks of precious manuscripts hidden away by people who were NOT Dickinson's literary heirs -- really, it's a wonder any of us have even heard of Emily Dickinson, let alone had the chance to read her work.
Anyway. More about that in another review. My point is, the idea of a lost Dickinson poem is a good one, as criminal ideas go, and Mark Hofmann ran with it. Unrelated to this particular forgery, he also murdered two people.
My current work in progress involves a young woman who's the focal point of a slew of unsolved murders. She's also obsessed with Emily Dickinson. A case of the poet's life intersecting with that of a murderer seemed like something my heroine would be drawn to.
The short review: I would have been better off just reading an article about the forger.
The details: The only good I got out of this book was the chance to look at a photo of the forgery.
Yes, okay, hindsight is 20-20 and I'm an arrogant jerk for saying this, but I didn't think the writing was especially convincing. There aren't enough dashes, for one thing. The question mark is too tall. And the handwriting is too loopy to be an early poem and too neat to be a late one. (Yes, I'm lucky enough to own The Manuscript Books Of Emily Dickinson, which I never would have been able to afford to buy myself. Thank you, Mama Ginny, for stepping in and letting me pretend to be as rich as my own heroine.)
In case you're wondering, here's the poem itself:
That God cannot
be understood
Everyone agrees
We do not know
His motives nor
Comprehend his
Deeds ---
Then why should I
Seek solace in
What I cannot
Know?
Better to play
In winter's sun
Than to fear the
Snow
It's not a particularly good poem, as scholars agreed even at the time they believed it was hers. It's also not nearly as shocking as Hofmann, a disillusioned Mormon, apparently thought it would be.
Dickinson's poetry is often surprisingly sassy when it comes to religion. Having read a decent number of her poems and letters, as well as a lot of biographical material, I think it's safe to conclude she was an agnostic. She seems to have believed in a God, but not necessarily the Christian one. She didn't feel at all sure there was any afterlife, as we can see from this snippet from a letter to a friend who'd recently been widowed and who talked about seeing his wife in Heaven:
You speak with so much trust of that which only trust can prove, it makes me feel away, as if my English mates spoke sudden in Italian.
It grieves me that you speak of Death with so much expectation....Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.
So Hofmann may not have been as shocking as he expected to be by implying that Dickinson didn't think the mind of God could be known.
Unfortunately for me, most of this book is about the rest of Hofmann's career, which was largely involved with Mormon forgeries. Even more unfortunately for me, the parts of this book that deal with Dickinson are so annoyingly misleading and inaccurate that I did a lot of yelling, and I've been trying so hard to cut down on that.
He gets little things wrong:
After her death many poems and letters were destroyed by her family.
Not true. So far as I know, not a single poem was destroyed. Letters written to her were, and her sister Lavinia regretted that immediately -- but it was the custom of the time as well as Dickinson's wish for her to do so. But the poems were recognized immediately as too valuable to go under the match.
No forger would know this most private and secretive of poets well enough to know that though she kept almost everyone else in her life at arm's length, she had always felt at ease with children. It would have taken Hofmann months, if not years, of research to get to this level of intimacy with her.
Not true at all. One of the best-known stories about Dickinson is her habit during her life of lowering treats in a basket to the children who came to play in the Dickinson yard. One of those children grew up to write a book about how much those kids loved Dickinson because she so clearly loved them. And every major biographer seems in agreement that the death of her young nephew seems to have hastened her own death.
And then he gets BIG things wrong:
That was the other side of small-town life. Everyone was in everyone else's business. Emily had known that. Eventually she would not even leave her house, so frightened and disgusted was she by the rumors and back-biting, the matrons in black tut-tutting on the street, those mean-spirited shrews, who all claimed to be good Christian women, whispering about Sapphic love and secret meetings she was supposed to have with married men.
Where do I even begin? For one thing, Dickinson's famous reclusiveness is famous most of all for being so mysterious. No one knows exactly why she began to stay more and more at home, eventually barely leaving even her own room. Some think this must have been mental illness of one kind or another -- depression and/or agoraphobia certainly don't seem unlikely. One biographer thinks she was epileptic. But none of them can say for certain that they've solved this strange, quiet mystery.
Enter Simon Worrall, who apparently managed a posthumous mind meld with the poet!
As for the "Sapphic love" -- oh, give me strength. It wasn't until comparatively recently that Dickinson's deep affection for her sister-in-law was considered -- by scholars, not gossipy neighbor women -- to have been perhaps more than just friendly. And even these scholars don't all think this romantic love was ever expressed physically. NO one during Dickinson's life ever thought or said any such thing. If anything, the myth ran too far in the other direction -- that in spite of Dickinson's love for her family, she eventually wouldn't leave her house even to visit dear Sue who lived right next door.
And affairs with married men? Unless Worrall's talking about biographers speculating that Dickinson had a crush on married friend Samuel Bowles, I don't know what he could mean.
At times, Worrall's inaccuracy leaps into the offensive:
Dickinson and her family took great pains to ensure that her secret lover remained secret (there are suggestions that she had a clandestine abortion in Amherst in 1861).
(head DESK)
The "secret lover" is a reference to a few letters Dickinson wrote but never sent. We have no idea to whom, if anyone, they were intended. Susan Howe, in My Emily Dickinson, makes an excellent argument that these should be regarded as works of literature rather than the pitiful remains of an unrequited passion. One question I've never seen any biographer willing to tackle is why, if these letters were just plain hot stuff meant for a real person, Dickinson kept them in the first place, knowing that someday they were bound to be found by her family.
As for the alleged "suggestions" of an abortion -- where? Where are the suggestions? I've been reading a bleep-ton about Dickinson lately (as you may have noticed), and I've never heard a thing about this.
What I have heard is that Austin Dickinson's mistress insisted that Sue Dickinson (his wife and Emily's cherished friend) had attempted a few abortions of her own. The fact that this mistress was looking for every piece of fuel she could find to justify her affair with Dickinson's brother means that we should regard her as a hostile witness and take anything she says with a world-record sized boulder of salt.
It is clear that Emily Dickinson fell madly, deeply in love with him [Samuel Bowles].
No, it ISN'T. Again, that's one of the mysteries of Dickinson's deeply mysterious life: who, if anyone, did she love in her younger years?
She did have a late-life love affair of sorts with Otis Phillips Lord, but this consisted primarily of tender and often passionate letters, and occasional make-out sessions on the sofa. (No, really. She was in her fifties. I was so thrilled to hear about that, I can't even.) That's all we know for sure about her love life.
But here comes Worrall, insisting in a book that isn't even primarily about Dickinson that he's the world expert on the things that still baffle other biographers.
So, yeah, I learned a lot about forgery in general and Mark Hofmann's career in particular. Maybe. Frankly, given the mistakes Worrall made about Dickinson, I'm worried that the rest of this book may not be particularly credible.
I regret to say that -- other than the peek it gave me of the Dickinson forgery -- this book was a huge disappointment.
A "new" Dickinson poem is always a possibility. She left behind a disordered mass of writing that, fortunately for all of us, her sister ignored instructions to destroy and instead set about attempting to publish. This was no easy task for many reasons, including Dickinson's difficult handwriting and her sister's eventual choice of editors -- namely, her brother's mistress. That brother's wife didn't appreciate this choice at all -- and she happened to live right next door, and had her own copies of plenty of Dickinson's poems.
More about this in my upcoming review of Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds. Suffice to say, no writer has ever had a more bizarre publication history than Dickinson. Lots of court battles; hatred passed down to the next generation; trunks of precious manuscripts hidden away by people who were NOT Dickinson's literary heirs -- really, it's a wonder any of us have even heard of Emily Dickinson, let alone had the chance to read her work.
Anyway. More about that in another review. My point is, the idea of a lost Dickinson poem is a good one, as criminal ideas go, and Mark Hofmann ran with it. Unrelated to this particular forgery, he also murdered two people.
My current work in progress involves a young woman who's the focal point of a slew of unsolved murders. She's also obsessed with Emily Dickinson. A case of the poet's life intersecting with that of a murderer seemed like something my heroine would be drawn to.
The short review: I would have been better off just reading an article about the forger.
The details: The only good I got out of this book was the chance to look at a photo of the forgery.
Yes, okay, hindsight is 20-20 and I'm an arrogant jerk for saying this, but I didn't think the writing was especially convincing. There aren't enough dashes, for one thing. The question mark is too tall. And the handwriting is too loopy to be an early poem and too neat to be a late one. (Yes, I'm lucky enough to own The Manuscript Books Of Emily Dickinson, which I never would have been able to afford to buy myself. Thank you, Mama Ginny, for stepping in and letting me pretend to be as rich as my own heroine.)
In case you're wondering, here's the poem itself:
That God cannot
be understood
Everyone agrees
We do not know
His motives nor
Comprehend his
Deeds ---
Then why should I
Seek solace in
What I cannot
Know?
Better to play
In winter's sun
Than to fear the
Snow
It's not a particularly good poem, as scholars agreed even at the time they believed it was hers. It's also not nearly as shocking as Hofmann, a disillusioned Mormon, apparently thought it would be.
Dickinson's poetry is often surprisingly sassy when it comes to religion. Having read a decent number of her poems and letters, as well as a lot of biographical material, I think it's safe to conclude she was an agnostic. She seems to have believed in a God, but not necessarily the Christian one. She didn't feel at all sure there was any afterlife, as we can see from this snippet from a letter to a friend who'd recently been widowed and who talked about seeing his wife in Heaven:
You speak with so much trust of that which only trust can prove, it makes me feel away, as if my English mates spoke sudden in Italian.
It grieves me that you speak of Death with so much expectation....Dying is a wild Night and a new Road.
So Hofmann may not have been as shocking as he expected to be by implying that Dickinson didn't think the mind of God could be known.
Unfortunately for me, most of this book is about the rest of Hofmann's career, which was largely involved with Mormon forgeries. Even more unfortunately for me, the parts of this book that deal with Dickinson are so annoyingly misleading and inaccurate that I did a lot of yelling, and I've been trying so hard to cut down on that.
He gets little things wrong:
After her death many poems and letters were destroyed by her family.
Not true. So far as I know, not a single poem was destroyed. Letters written to her were, and her sister Lavinia regretted that immediately -- but it was the custom of the time as well as Dickinson's wish for her to do so. But the poems were recognized immediately as too valuable to go under the match.
No forger would know this most private and secretive of poets well enough to know that though she kept almost everyone else in her life at arm's length, she had always felt at ease with children. It would have taken Hofmann months, if not years, of research to get to this level of intimacy with her.
Not true at all. One of the best-known stories about Dickinson is her habit during her life of lowering treats in a basket to the children who came to play in the Dickinson yard. One of those children grew up to write a book about how much those kids loved Dickinson because she so clearly loved them. And every major biographer seems in agreement that the death of her young nephew seems to have hastened her own death.
And then he gets BIG things wrong:
That was the other side of small-town life. Everyone was in everyone else's business. Emily had known that. Eventually she would not even leave her house, so frightened and disgusted was she by the rumors and back-biting, the matrons in black tut-tutting on the street, those mean-spirited shrews, who all claimed to be good Christian women, whispering about Sapphic love and secret meetings she was supposed to have with married men.
Where do I even begin? For one thing, Dickinson's famous reclusiveness is famous most of all for being so mysterious. No one knows exactly why she began to stay more and more at home, eventually barely leaving even her own room. Some think this must have been mental illness of one kind or another -- depression and/or agoraphobia certainly don't seem unlikely. One biographer thinks she was epileptic. But none of them can say for certain that they've solved this strange, quiet mystery.
Enter Simon Worrall, who apparently managed a posthumous mind meld with the poet!
As for the "Sapphic love" -- oh, give me strength. It wasn't until comparatively recently that Dickinson's deep affection for her sister-in-law was considered -- by scholars, not gossipy neighbor women -- to have been perhaps more than just friendly. And even these scholars don't all think this romantic love was ever expressed physically. NO one during Dickinson's life ever thought or said any such thing. If anything, the myth ran too far in the other direction -- that in spite of Dickinson's love for her family, she eventually wouldn't leave her house even to visit dear Sue who lived right next door.
And affairs with married men? Unless Worrall's talking about biographers speculating that Dickinson had a crush on married friend Samuel Bowles, I don't know what he could mean.
At times, Worrall's inaccuracy leaps into the offensive:
Dickinson and her family took great pains to ensure that her secret lover remained secret (there are suggestions that she had a clandestine abortion in Amherst in 1861).
(head DESK)
The "secret lover" is a reference to a few letters Dickinson wrote but never sent. We have no idea to whom, if anyone, they were intended. Susan Howe, in My Emily Dickinson, makes an excellent argument that these should be regarded as works of literature rather than the pitiful remains of an unrequited passion. One question I've never seen any biographer willing to tackle is why, if these letters were just plain hot stuff meant for a real person, Dickinson kept them in the first place, knowing that someday they were bound to be found by her family.
As for the alleged "suggestions" of an abortion -- where? Where are the suggestions? I've been reading a bleep-ton about Dickinson lately (as you may have noticed), and I've never heard a thing about this.
What I have heard is that Austin Dickinson's mistress insisted that Sue Dickinson (his wife and Emily's cherished friend) had attempted a few abortions of her own. The fact that this mistress was looking for every piece of fuel she could find to justify her affair with Dickinson's brother means that we should regard her as a hostile witness and take anything she says with a world-record sized boulder of salt.
It is clear that Emily Dickinson fell madly, deeply in love with him [Samuel Bowles].
No, it ISN'T. Again, that's one of the mysteries of Dickinson's deeply mysterious life: who, if anyone, did she love in her younger years?
She did have a late-life love affair of sorts with Otis Phillips Lord, but this consisted primarily of tender and often passionate letters, and occasional make-out sessions on the sofa. (No, really. She was in her fifties. I was so thrilled to hear about that, I can't even.) That's all we know for sure about her love life.
But here comes Worrall, insisting in a book that isn't even primarily about Dickinson that he's the world expert on the things that still baffle other biographers.
So, yeah, I learned a lot about forgery in general and Mark Hofmann's career in particular. Maybe. Frankly, given the mistakes Worrall made about Dickinson, I'm worried that the rest of this book may not be particularly credible.
I regret to say that -- other than the peek it gave me of the Dickinson forgery -- this book was a huge disappointment.
February 15, 2020
Quizás el titulo pueda llevar a engaño en el sentido de que al aparecer en él -la poeta-, en este caso, Emily Dickinson, se pueda llegar a pensar que ella va a ser uno o el personaje protagonista de esta novela pero nada más alejado. Es cierto que, el autor usa la falsificación de un poema de Emily Dickinson como punto de partida para crear y envolver en atmósfera lo que vendrá después, porque Emily Dickinson es lo suficientemente interesante como personaje como para atraer la atención inmediata:
"Dickinson se ha convertido junto a Walt Whitman, en la poeta americana de mayor envergadura. Su lenguaje idiosincrático resulta atractivo para el oído posmoderno. Al igual que Sylvia Plath, Dickinson es considerada la encarnación de la conciencia femenina. Su existencia solitaria encuentra eco en el estilo de vida de la mujer actual"
(...)
" Dickinson tampoco se sentía en sintonía con los tiempos que vivía. La enervaban la histeria y el fundamentalismo de los renacimientos religiosos que arrasaban Amherst; sufría con las matanzas y las divisiones causadas por la guerra civil, y detestaba la absorbente retórica de los politicos."
En esta novela, lo que de verdad nos cuenta Simon Worrall es la historia de Mark Hoffman, un falsificador literario que consiguió engañar durante años a los mayores expertos del mundo falsificando documentos de personajes históricos, escritores, y realmente estas falsificaciones eran tan perfectas, que casi podrían considerarse auténticas obras de arte. Asi que el autor se sirve de una falsificación de un poema de Emily Dickinson por Hoffman para construir la novela y usarla como excusa y punto de partida para contarnos la vida de este falsificador inteligente, misterioso y complejísimo, y para ello se adentra en analizar los orígenes de su vida. Matt Hoffman criado bajo la estricta disciplina de la iglesia mormona, desde pequeño cuestionó la hipocresia de la religión de la que su familia era una férrea defensora, asi que de alguna forma desde muy jóven y usando su talento, comenzó a falsificar documentos mormones en una forma de rebeldia silenciosa.
"Era entonces, durante la falsificación, más que en ningún otro momento, cuando más en paz y más libre se sentía. Al pretender ser otra persona podía escapar de los demonios interiores que lo acechaban; olvidarse de sí mismo; dejar de ser el hijo confuso de una represiva familia de mormones, el escolar marginado con su calculadora al cinturón que no podía decirle a nadie lo que realmente sentía, el anticuario de provincias que apenas lograba ganarse la vida con los restos litearios de los muertos. Se convertía en poeta y en mago, en prestidigitador de tinta y papel, en ventrílocuo y en camaleón. Era Joseph Smith y Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln y Daniel Boone."
Durante la novela, el autor se dedica a analizar tres temas para mi muy atractivos: la vida de Emily Dickinson como hilo conductor para entrar en la novela, la vida de Matt Hoffman, y finalmente, entra en las entrañas de la iglesia mormona analizándola históricamente desde sus orígenes, Me parecen tres temas tan atractivos y tan diferentes al mismo tiempo que lo que consigue aqui Simon Worrall es crear una novela muy atmósferica que aunque no es una novela de ficción, sino más bien una investigación novelada, consigue darle un ritmo casi de thriller, envolviéndola de suspense y de misterio.
La verdad es que es una novela que he disfrutado mucho, muy bien escrita y documentada, que nos ayuda a conocer a uno de los personajes más fascinantes del mundo del crimen, Matt Hoffman, un tipo cultísimo y apasionado por la literatura. Leyéndola me he acordado mucho de Patricia Highsmith que también parecía algo obsesionada por el mundo de las falsificaciones, y que a mi me parece todo un un universo muy rico en cuánto a reflexionar sobre identidades, mentiras y dobles subterfugios.
"Un manuscrito original, en cambio, bien sea el trozo de papel en el que Paul McCartney garabateó la letra "Hey, Jude" o un poema de Emily Dickinson, nos conecta de una forma visceral con el pasado y nos acerca lo máximo posible a los hombres y mujeres que cambiaron el mundo y dieron voz a los pensamientos y emociones, que nosotros no podemos articular."
"Dickinson se ha convertido junto a Walt Whitman, en la poeta americana de mayor envergadura. Su lenguaje idiosincrático resulta atractivo para el oído posmoderno. Al igual que Sylvia Plath, Dickinson es considerada la encarnación de la conciencia femenina. Su existencia solitaria encuentra eco en el estilo de vida de la mujer actual"
(...)
" Dickinson tampoco se sentía en sintonía con los tiempos que vivía. La enervaban la histeria y el fundamentalismo de los renacimientos religiosos que arrasaban Amherst; sufría con las matanzas y las divisiones causadas por la guerra civil, y detestaba la absorbente retórica de los politicos."
En esta novela, lo que de verdad nos cuenta Simon Worrall es la historia de Mark Hoffman, un falsificador literario que consiguió engañar durante años a los mayores expertos del mundo falsificando documentos de personajes históricos, escritores, y realmente estas falsificaciones eran tan perfectas, que casi podrían considerarse auténticas obras de arte. Asi que el autor se sirve de una falsificación de un poema de Emily Dickinson por Hoffman para construir la novela y usarla como excusa y punto de partida para contarnos la vida de este falsificador inteligente, misterioso y complejísimo, y para ello se adentra en analizar los orígenes de su vida. Matt Hoffman criado bajo la estricta disciplina de la iglesia mormona, desde pequeño cuestionó la hipocresia de la religión de la que su familia era una férrea defensora, asi que de alguna forma desde muy jóven y usando su talento, comenzó a falsificar documentos mormones en una forma de rebeldia silenciosa.
"Era entonces, durante la falsificación, más que en ningún otro momento, cuando más en paz y más libre se sentía. Al pretender ser otra persona podía escapar de los demonios interiores que lo acechaban; olvidarse de sí mismo; dejar de ser el hijo confuso de una represiva familia de mormones, el escolar marginado con su calculadora al cinturón que no podía decirle a nadie lo que realmente sentía, el anticuario de provincias que apenas lograba ganarse la vida con los restos litearios de los muertos. Se convertía en poeta y en mago, en prestidigitador de tinta y papel, en ventrílocuo y en camaleón. Era Joseph Smith y Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln y Daniel Boone."
Durante la novela, el autor se dedica a analizar tres temas para mi muy atractivos: la vida de Emily Dickinson como hilo conductor para entrar en la novela, la vida de Matt Hoffman, y finalmente, entra en las entrañas de la iglesia mormona analizándola históricamente desde sus orígenes, Me parecen tres temas tan atractivos y tan diferentes al mismo tiempo que lo que consigue aqui Simon Worrall es crear una novela muy atmósferica que aunque no es una novela de ficción, sino más bien una investigación novelada, consigue darle un ritmo casi de thriller, envolviéndola de suspense y de misterio.
La verdad es que es una novela que he disfrutado mucho, muy bien escrita y documentada, que nos ayuda a conocer a uno de los personajes más fascinantes del mundo del crimen, Matt Hoffman, un tipo cultísimo y apasionado por la literatura. Leyéndola me he acordado mucho de Patricia Highsmith que también parecía algo obsesionada por el mundo de las falsificaciones, y que a mi me parece todo un un universo muy rico en cuánto a reflexionar sobre identidades, mentiras y dobles subterfugios.
"Un manuscrito original, en cambio, bien sea el trozo de papel en el que Paul McCartney garabateó la letra "Hey, Jude" o un poema de Emily Dickinson, nos conecta de una forma visceral con el pasado y nos acerca lo máximo posible a los hombres y mujeres que cambiaron el mundo y dieron voz a los pensamientos y emociones, que nosotros no podemos articular."
May 1, 2007
Emily Dickinson, Mormons, and forgery, oh my! You'll have to read this true story to find out how these three unlikely things intertwine. (Do I sound like Lavar Burton?) As someone with interests in both unusual religious movements and American literature, I found this book to be really intriguing and enjoyable. Not to mention the forgeries and murders. Read it. You'll see.
January 29, 2013
This is yet another book about Mark Hofmann, the geeky master forger who in the early 80s set about to bring down the Mormon Church. He was doing a passable job embarrassing the church hierarchy with undetectable forgeries, while also creating and selling letters and “lost works” by some other of America’s great historical figures. Hofmann’s work as a criminal was amazing, beyond reproach. No, his problem was that his debt got the best of him, and he desperately started planting pipe bombs, killing two people, to try to escape getting caught. But he accidentally detonated one of the pipe bombs on himself, and some very smart people got very suspicious.
Thus was caught probably the greatest forger the world has ever known.
It’s all fascinating and impressive stuff, and journalist Simon Worrall deftly bookmarks the whole story around Hofmann’s drafting of a lost Emily Dickenson poem. So many people wanted to believe this “new work” was real, and Hofmann’s forgeries and back-stories were so outstanding, that people would not let it die. Over and over, this poem was sold and resold, even by the venerable auction house Sotheby’s, who had a very good idea they were peddling a forgery in 2002, almost 20 years after Hofmann got caught.
There are two essential problems with Worrall’s book. One is that two other books, Salamander and The Mormon Forgery Murders, have been written about Hofmann. (Salamander is actually the best of all three). There is only little new to tell, even with Worrall’s framing the story around Dickenson’s “poem” and Sotheby’s deception.
This leads us to the second problem. Instead, Worrall spends most of the middle of the book filth-mouthing and maligning the Mormon Church and its history. Truthfully, it is a strange, dark history, but one has to wonder if Worrall himself has the same goal as Hofmann does to bring down the religious institution. So much ugly rhetoric, so much bile and vicious vitriol is flung that one starts to doubt the author’s journalistic integrity.
It’s a book supposedly based on history; if a reader (and especially one like me, who knows much about Mormon history) senses such a strong bias on the part of the author, the whole thing begins to smack of forgery.
Thus was caught probably the greatest forger the world has ever known.
It’s all fascinating and impressive stuff, and journalist Simon Worrall deftly bookmarks the whole story around Hofmann’s drafting of a lost Emily Dickenson poem. So many people wanted to believe this “new work” was real, and Hofmann’s forgeries and back-stories were so outstanding, that people would not let it die. Over and over, this poem was sold and resold, even by the venerable auction house Sotheby’s, who had a very good idea they were peddling a forgery in 2002, almost 20 years after Hofmann got caught.
There are two essential problems with Worrall’s book. One is that two other books, Salamander and The Mormon Forgery Murders, have been written about Hofmann. (Salamander is actually the best of all three). There is only little new to tell, even with Worrall’s framing the story around Dickenson’s “poem” and Sotheby’s deception.
This leads us to the second problem. Instead, Worrall spends most of the middle of the book filth-mouthing and maligning the Mormon Church and its history. Truthfully, it is a strange, dark history, but one has to wonder if Worrall himself has the same goal as Hofmann does to bring down the religious institution. So much ugly rhetoric, so much bile and vicious vitriol is flung that one starts to doubt the author’s journalistic integrity.
It’s a book supposedly based on history; if a reader (and especially one like me, who knows much about Mormon history) senses such a strong bias on the part of the author, the whole thing begins to smack of forgery.
October 2, 2019
Interesante, hipnótica, intrigante.
Me ha enganchado, a pesar de que en algunos momentos su lectura se atascaba por abundar los nombres y los detalles de los pasos del falsificador.
Cada vez me gustan más los libros sobre libros.
La edición, como viene siendo habitual, impecable.
https://lahierbaroja.com/2019/09/26/l...
Me ha enganchado, a pesar de que en algunos momentos su lectura se atascaba por abundar los nombres y los detalles de los pasos del falsificador.
Cada vez me gustan más los libros sobre libros.
La edición, como viene siendo habitual, impecable.
https://lahierbaroja.com/2019/09/26/l...
September 16, 2009
I found this book fascinating. based on a true story of a literary forgerer.
May 30, 2012
This was a well-written account of a forged "newly discovered" poem by Emily Dickinson. I enjoyed all the material in this book, and Worrall's painstaking research into how the fake documents were so masterfully made, but the structure was a bit off-putting. The book opens with the story of a curator at the Jones Library in Amherst securing the poem for some $20,000 at auction. This part is great--the excitement, how he raised the money, how the poem was verified (or not really), and its discovery as a fake. The book then shifts to "the murderer" part of the equation, Mark Hofmann. I'd read the Morman Murders many years ago and so this material was fascinating, but it dominated the remainder of the book, with details about Hofmann's brilliant forgeries of Morman papers and 17th century documents. I kept wondering when we would be back in Amherst to see the fallout of this librarian buying the fake ED poem, how he returned the money (if he did), what the mood was like, basically the effects of a forgery on libraries, acquisitions, verification, collectors, experts, etc. But the books ends with Hofmann's pipe-bomb murders and an interview wtih him in jail. Since I'd known this story, it wasn't new to me, and felt a bit like a rehash of The Morman Murders. But the book is fascinating all the same, and well written.
November 28, 2012
Yikes, this book was pretty awful, and it only gets two stars for having an interesting basic premise. It is shockingly poorly written and can't possibly have been edited, because it is probably 2-3 times as long as it should be, goes on weird tangents, and the writing is incredibly repetitive. The author really has this weird boner for the murderer, and kind of a ridiculous amount of vitriol for Mormons (save that for your anti-Mormon screed book, bro; this one's supposed to be about Emily Dickinson). Had to skim the last ~40% of it, but I really just wanted to find out about the murdering. Free on kindle; paid too much.
August 5, 2007
This book sucked. There, I said it. I can't understand how it passed an editor's eye. The author (though I haven't met him, so perhaps he's a peach) is an egomaniacal jerk. The story behind the writing is actually pretty interesting...forgery and Dickinson...but how could he go so wrong? Grr. My blood's boiling just thinking about it.
December 8, 2010
Interesting story, now I want to read about Emily Dickinson and the mormons!!
September 24, 2012
Fascinating. Thus book would be worth the read if only for the chapter on handwriting.
September 28, 2019
Bastante interesante pero me da la impresión de que el autor no es nada objetivo con el tema mormón.
Por no hablar de que la sinopsis de la editorial promete una cosa y el libro acaba siendo otra bastante más aburrida
Por no hablar de que la sinopsis de la editorial promete una cosa y el libro acaba siendo otra bastante más aburrida
October 12, 2012
This wasn't what I was expecting - it was better. It starts with the discovery of a forged Emily Dickinson poem, and then delves into the history of a master forger who set out to discredit the Mormon church and ends up turning to murder. It sounds like fiction, but it's all true.
If you've enjoyed books about the Hitler Diaries, or Simon Winchester's The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, or the books of Giles Milton, you'll love this. Fascinating from beginning to end.
If you've enjoyed books about the Hitler Diaries, or Simon Winchester's The Professor & the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, or the books of Giles Milton, you'll love this. Fascinating from beginning to end.
September 26, 2021
This book is fantastically interesting Hoffman could be the greatest forger of all time. There is some pretty dry reading in some chapters especially the beginning. I enjoyed this book. I am left with so many more questions about everything. The author is mostly neutral but does express some anti-LDS so if that would bother you this might not be the book for you. You should watch the Netflix documentary instead.
October 12, 2014
This book was a quick read and fascinating. You hear of forgeries but I had no idea what has been done and how the experts can be fooled. The book is based on a forgery of an Emily Dickinsen poem but also discusses the history of the Mormon church and the documents forged and sold to the leaders.
January 28, 2019
I just can’t wrap my head around the complete lack of editing. There were so many grammatical errors and factual errors that it made the book almost unreadable. The author couldn’t even get Gandalf’s name right. There are other books about Mark Hofmann. Pick any of them instead of this dreck.
June 25, 2013
Interesting look into the world of historical document forgery
September 20, 2017
This was an odd book. I read the disclaimer at the start saying it is a work of fiction, but it covers a historical person and events and certainly tries to act like research and nonfiction. So I felt confused the whole time. I can see from other reviewers that many of his statements are untrue. He does seem to make a lot of assumptions. So I just didn't know what to believe at all.
I must say I have never read a book with so many typos and grammar errors. It was distracting and made it feel more childish.
That said, I was entertained and engaged in the story, so I landed at three stars. Odd read.
I must say I have never read a book with so many typos and grammar errors. It was distracting and made it feel more childish.
That said, I was entertained and engaged in the story, so I landed at three stars. Odd read.
July 1, 2020
This is a book about a mormon forger and murderer, and since it is narrative nonfiction it meant I had to spend a lot of time with him. I thought it would be more about Dickinson.
The book editor Susan Rabiner says that, "Narrative nonfiction is character-driven and highly psychological, focusing on what it is like for an individual or group to go through a particular experience that in some way, real or imagined, threatens the person's or people's sense of well-being." Reading this book made me realize that I am glad the book I am writing is history rather than NNF. "Serious nonfiction is research-driven argument – whether written by academics, journalists, or independent scholars. While a work of serious fiction may well have some characters and, at times, comment on their psyches, its primary aim is to make sense of an event, an idea, or a time and place. Its goal is to offer a new interpretation, to be explanatory. That's why serious nonfiction lends itself so well to endless re-examinations of known events. The events haven't changed but what we are interested in regarding those events does change as our priorities change and that's what creates room for new interpretations."
The book editor Susan Rabiner says that, "Narrative nonfiction is character-driven and highly psychological, focusing on what it is like for an individual or group to go through a particular experience that in some way, real or imagined, threatens the person's or people's sense of well-being." Reading this book made me realize that I am glad the book I am writing is history rather than NNF. "Serious nonfiction is research-driven argument – whether written by academics, journalists, or independent scholars. While a work of serious fiction may well have some characters and, at times, comment on their psyches, its primary aim is to make sense of an event, an idea, or a time and place. Its goal is to offer a new interpretation, to be explanatory. That's why serious nonfiction lends itself so well to endless re-examinations of known events. The events haven't changed but what we are interested in regarding those events does change as our priorities change and that's what creates room for new interpretations."
August 2, 2023
I think this is my first two star book. It's not that it's bad, it was just a bit...well...meh. It wasn't boring too, the parts about conspiracies or theories about Emily Dickinson's life, the bits about the LDS church, and ofc whatever happened to our main guy Mark Hoffman. So basically, this book is about the forged poem of Emily Dickinson by Hoffman. To understand how it came to be, we're taken to the life story of Hoffman and where his talent for forgery came from, his motivations and all that jazz, plus the two murders he committed. Like I said, the story sounds interesting, but I just wasn't captivated (vs my expectations of it that is).
October 10, 2009
The Poet and the Murderer begins with the story of Daniel Lombardo, a curator from Amherst, Massachusetts, who with great fanfare had bought an original, newly discovered poem by Emily Dickson for his town library—-but he soon discovered that the poem was a skillful Hofmann forgery. This sale occurred twelve years after Hofmann had confessed (it’s mind-boggling that many of his forgeries are still in circulation, changing our understanding of people and events). The book, subtitled "A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery," moves on to the history of forgers and their “craft” and then to Hofmann in particular and the elements in his life, his culture and beliefs, that shaped the kind of person he was—-an extraordinary forger and extraordinary con man.
Richard Turley’s account in Victims of the Hofmann’s forgeries as they impacted the Mormon church was carefully, almost tediously researched and footnoted and the writing was a bit dry, though the story itself was very compelling. Simon Worrall in his book, on the other hand, focused more on the characters, the whos and whys and wherefores, which was fascinating reading . . . that is until I realized that he wasn’t as careful as Turley to be sure of his facts. It was easy for me as a Mormon to spot the errors, misinterpreted facts, and mean-spirited, slanted explanations about Mormon life and beliefs—-which I think was not so much Worrall’s fault but the fault of the anti-Mormon source material from which he drew his material. It made me think that the same might be true of his depiction of Sothebys, the Gallery of History, Emily Dickinson research, and other events in the story—-how much is true and how much is one-sided? what interpretations were chosen because they made the best story? I began to question Worrall’s objectivity and research. I found it ironic that the author was telling how Hofmann’s forgeries impacted the literary world and yet he didn’t realize that his description of Joseph Smith connection with gold-digging and magic was also colored by Hofmann’s forgeries.
I felt that what began as a good book degenerated into a disappointing sensationalist piece of unintended fraud itself.
Richard Turley’s account in Victims of the Hofmann’s forgeries as they impacted the Mormon church was carefully, almost tediously researched and footnoted and the writing was a bit dry, though the story itself was very compelling. Simon Worrall in his book, on the other hand, focused more on the characters, the whos and whys and wherefores, which was fascinating reading . . . that is until I realized that he wasn’t as careful as Turley to be sure of his facts. It was easy for me as a Mormon to spot the errors, misinterpreted facts, and mean-spirited, slanted explanations about Mormon life and beliefs—-which I think was not so much Worrall’s fault but the fault of the anti-Mormon source material from which he drew his material. It made me think that the same might be true of his depiction of Sothebys, the Gallery of History, Emily Dickinson research, and other events in the story—-how much is true and how much is one-sided? what interpretations were chosen because they made the best story? I began to question Worrall’s objectivity and research. I found it ironic that the author was telling how Hofmann’s forgeries impacted the literary world and yet he didn’t realize that his description of Joseph Smith connection with gold-digging and magic was also colored by Hofmann’s forgeries.
I felt that what began as a good book degenerated into a disappointing sensationalist piece of unintended fraud itself.
August 8, 2017
Although I cannot imagine doing it myself, I have always seen forgers as the artists of crime. This is not to excuse their deeds or the suffering they cause, but to me that are vastly more interesting than some gang banger on the street.
I have read "A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Deceit" by Robert Lindsey years ago. In many ways "The Poet and the Murderer" by Simon Worrall is the other half of that book, although each book can stand alone. "A Gathering of Saints" covers the loss of faith of the forger and killer Mark Hoffman, and the devious plan he concocted to shame the Church of Latter Day Saints while appearing to be a devout Mormon, and make money from his fraud to boot. At the end of that book, one of the detectives opines that there is no way to know how many of Hoffman's forgeries are out there, hanging proudly on someone's wall, being bought and sold. For Hoffman did not only forge LDS documents, he forged signatures and letters purportedly by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Daniel Boone and - in the case of "The Poet and the Murderer", Emily Dickinson.
The Emily Dickinson forgery is the "Poet" of the book, and much of the book speaks of her or the forgery of her work directly or indirectly. Then; like a dark cloud approaching, Mark Hoffman enters the narrative and intertwines a deeply shy, innocent genius, with a gifted con man who is an even more gifted forger.
There is much about the book I cannot share, I wish to leave the surprises in store for the reader to find. But I can that this is a fascinating book, an interweaving of good and evil, full of twists that I have not found in any other book on Hoffman. It does an excellent job of unraveling the mind of a gentle genius, and also of a sociopath who put more effort into the success of a devious plan, than he would have needed to put into an honest venture to make it a roaring success.
And remember, he was willing to kill to make his plan work.
I have read "A Gathering of Saints: A True Story of Money, Murder, and Deceit" by Robert Lindsey years ago. In many ways "The Poet and the Murderer" by Simon Worrall is the other half of that book, although each book can stand alone. "A Gathering of Saints" covers the loss of faith of the forger and killer Mark Hoffman, and the devious plan he concocted to shame the Church of Latter Day Saints while appearing to be a devout Mormon, and make money from his fraud to boot. At the end of that book, one of the detectives opines that there is no way to know how many of Hoffman's forgeries are out there, hanging proudly on someone's wall, being bought and sold. For Hoffman did not only forge LDS documents, he forged signatures and letters purportedly by Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Daniel Boone and - in the case of "The Poet and the Murderer", Emily Dickinson.
The Emily Dickinson forgery is the "Poet" of the book, and much of the book speaks of her or the forgery of her work directly or indirectly. Then; like a dark cloud approaching, Mark Hoffman enters the narrative and intertwines a deeply shy, innocent genius, with a gifted con man who is an even more gifted forger.
There is much about the book I cannot share, I wish to leave the surprises in store for the reader to find. But I can that this is a fascinating book, an interweaving of good and evil, full of twists that I have not found in any other book on Hoffman. It does an excellent job of unraveling the mind of a gentle genius, and also of a sociopath who put more effort into the success of a devious plan, than he would have needed to put into an honest venture to make it a roaring success.
And remember, he was willing to kill to make his plan work.
June 26, 2013
This book reads like a series of vaguely connected articles in The New Yorker or Harper's rather than a chronicle of Hoffman's forgery of Dickinson. In the mid section, the chapters had very little connection to the narrative thread, instead focusing on forgery techniques, the science and psychology of handwriting, and Mormon history. Typically these had one paragraph at the end that reminded the reader they were supposed to be learning about Hoffman. Dickinson is only mentioned in the beginning and end of the book. Overall the style does not lend itself to easy reading since every chapter end brings about a jarring move to another topic.
I found his writing about Mormon history to be particularly off-putting. I am not Mormon, I've barely even met a Mormon, I am agnostic, yet I found his Mormon-bashing to be over-the-top. It's as if he found every negative story in Mormon history and decided to weave them all together. It would make sense because Hoffman hated Mormonism too. Instead of being informative, it comes across as mean-spirited and about half of it I had heard from other sources already with better context.
In the end, the most I got out of this was understanding people's motivations, for forgery, murder, secrecy, document collecting, etc. I did not get a clear understanding of the motivation to believe and follow Joseph Smith, Jr., but I can forgive Worrall that since people have been debating it for decades.
I found his writing about Mormon history to be particularly off-putting. I am not Mormon, I've barely even met a Mormon, I am agnostic, yet I found his Mormon-bashing to be over-the-top. It's as if he found every negative story in Mormon history and decided to weave them all together. It would make sense because Hoffman hated Mormonism too. Instead of being informative, it comes across as mean-spirited and about half of it I had heard from other sources already with better context.
In the end, the most I got out of this was understanding people's motivations, for forgery, murder, secrecy, document collecting, etc. I did not get a clear understanding of the motivation to believe and follow Joseph Smith, Jr., but I can forgive Worrall that since people have been debating it for decades.
January 18, 2012
This is another "atypical" book for me. Except for one period when it was all I read for a while, I never really got into "true crime" books but this one sucked me into a fascinating story. If Hofmann hadn't been so apparently caviler about taking life he'd be an even more fascinating character. (That sort of takes the bloom off the proverbial rose). His talent and intelligence (most of his forgeries were not detected until after he finally "messed up". Some are still out there being mistaken as real historical documents even 20+ years later). He knew how to get or make proper material from paper to inks and was an artist as a forger. He's a real example of "wow this is sad, think of what he might have accomplished if..."
He came to hate the strict Mormon church he was raised in. He hated what he saw as an attitude of superiority and the snobbery of collectors. So, he apparently set out to "do something about it". Unfortunately he over spent and got in a desperate situation....and settled on murder as a way to, gain time. It seemed so odd to me reading this that as he made thousands he continued to spend beyond what he could afford. The mind behind these crimes is in so many ways an enigma.
This is a well written book and a fascinating story that's more absorbing than fiction. Almost a 5 star...I gave it 4 because I can't give it a 4.5.
He came to hate the strict Mormon church he was raised in. He hated what he saw as an attitude of superiority and the snobbery of collectors. So, he apparently set out to "do something about it". Unfortunately he over spent and got in a desperate situation....and settled on murder as a way to, gain time. It seemed so odd to me reading this that as he made thousands he continued to spend beyond what he could afford. The mind behind these crimes is in so many ways an enigma.
This is a well written book and a fascinating story that's more absorbing than fiction. Almost a 5 star...I gave it 4 because I can't give it a 4.5.
February 5, 2013
A fascinating journey of the tale of Mark Hofmann, an infamous literary forger and murderer of the late twentieth century. Hofmann grew up raised in the Mormon faith and in his later years he set out to exploit what he believed to be the hypocrisy of his religion. A self-taught forger, Hofmann created fake and extremely controversial documents that were believed to be from the earliest days of the formation of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Having mastered his trade he moved on to forging literary works of art including supposed lost works by Emily Dickinson.
The book gives an excellent overview of the history of the Mormon religion of which I had absolutely no knowledge of prior to reading this book as well as some insight into the life of Emily Dickinson. What I found the most compelling was the lengths that Hofmann went to in order to create these forgeries that were so authentic looking that even world renowned forensic-document specialists were duped. A great tale of true crime that provides some great historical lessons on the Mormon faith and the world of forgery and forensic science that is used to authenticate documents and works of art. Hofmann went to great lengths to master his trade and hide his deceptions, up to and including murder. Along the way he left a trail of innocent victims including members of his own family.
The book gives an excellent overview of the history of the Mormon religion of which I had absolutely no knowledge of prior to reading this book as well as some insight into the life of Emily Dickinson. What I found the most compelling was the lengths that Hofmann went to in order to create these forgeries that were so authentic looking that even world renowned forensic-document specialists were duped. A great tale of true crime that provides some great historical lessons on the Mormon faith and the world of forgery and forensic science that is used to authenticate documents and works of art. Hofmann went to great lengths to master his trade and hide his deceptions, up to and including murder. Along the way he left a trail of innocent victims including members of his own family.
October 29, 2011
A fascinating look into the world of literary forgery. Besides: I love Emily Dickinson, I went to college in Amherst, and I've toured her house. Some of the asides go pretty far afield and make me wish the author had stayed focused on the central story. A good recommendation, Lisa. Thank you!
January 29, 2016
True was good, murder was good . . . but I don't care for poetry, so that was not good.
The writing was too florid, too descriptive. ugh. Lost interest.
The writing was too florid, too descriptive. ugh. Lost interest.
November 24, 2024
Sadly, I'm rather disappointed with this book. Before I started writing this review, I found another review (on Goodreads) that said the author described his book as "a work of fiction." This shocked me. My copy (the 2002 edition) describes it, in the preface, as "a true story of literary crime and the art of forgery." So which is it? Did the author, Simon Worrall, look back and decide that his work really was "fiction"? I find this a bit disturbing.
I began this book, very excited to read about a newly found poem by Emily Dickinson that had gone up for auction at Sotheby's. Experts at Sotheby's gave the green light for the work to be sold, even though they had many unanswered questions about the poem...such as where did it come from? Why hadn't it appeared earlier? Where had it been all this time?
According to the author, no one could answer these questions. In fact, there hadn't been a new Dickinson poem discovered in at least forty years. In additional, experts of Dickinson's work found anomalies in the writing, which made it inconsistent with her other poems. This made the work highly suspicious--possibly a forgery.
Even so, Daniel Lombardo bought the one-line poem at Sotheby's for $21,000, and he planned to donate to the Rogers Library in Amherst, so others could view and research it.
After the sale, the author, Simon Worrall (author of this book), and the buyer, Daniel Lombardo, suspected something was wrong with the poem. That's when they began looking into Mark Hofmann, who had a long rap sheet for forgeries and fraud. He specialized in documents he'd sold to the Church of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City. At the time of the Dickinson poem's sale, Worrall was serving jail time for a number of frauds.
After the Sotheby Worrall shifts the focus of the book to Mark Hofmann (who had a long career in producing fraudulent documents). Once Hofmann was introduced into the story, Worrall largely abandoned Dickinson and her poem and focuses almost entirely on Hofmann and the many types of frauds he had committed.
He does briefly return to Dickinson at the end.
Most of the book is focused on the history of frauds and the details and hubris of Mark Hofmann.
Not only was I disappointed that there wasn't more about Dickinson and whether or not the poem was really a fake, but further what happened to Daniel Lombard0 who bought the fake poem? Did he receive a refund from Sotheby's? How did he explain this fraud to all the people who donated money to buy the this fake poem?
That was one disappointment. The other disappointment was the number of typos and grammar errors throughout the book. Actually, I wasn't all that interested in Hofmann's story. But Hoffmann is the main character in the book (more than Emily Dickinson, even though her picture is on the cover and she is "the poet" referred to in the title). Well, let's just say it wasn't exactly what I had wanted or expected.
I began this book, very excited to read about a newly found poem by Emily Dickinson that had gone up for auction at Sotheby's. Experts at Sotheby's gave the green light for the work to be sold, even though they had many unanswered questions about the poem...such as where did it come from? Why hadn't it appeared earlier? Where had it been all this time?
According to the author, no one could answer these questions. In fact, there hadn't been a new Dickinson poem discovered in at least forty years. In additional, experts of Dickinson's work found anomalies in the writing, which made it inconsistent with her other poems. This made the work highly suspicious--possibly a forgery.
Even so, Daniel Lombardo bought the one-line poem at Sotheby's for $21,000, and he planned to donate to the Rogers Library in Amherst, so others could view and research it.
After the sale, the author, Simon Worrall (author of this book), and the buyer, Daniel Lombardo, suspected something was wrong with the poem. That's when they began looking into Mark Hofmann, who had a long rap sheet for forgeries and fraud. He specialized in documents he'd sold to the Church of Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City. At the time of the Dickinson poem's sale, Worrall was serving jail time for a number of frauds.
After the Sotheby Worrall shifts the focus of the book to Mark Hofmann (who had a long career in producing fraudulent documents). Once Hofmann was introduced into the story, Worrall largely abandoned Dickinson and her poem and focuses almost entirely on Hofmann and the many types of frauds he had committed.
He does briefly return to Dickinson at the end.
Most of the book is focused on the history of frauds and the details and hubris of Mark Hofmann.
Not only was I disappointed that there wasn't more about Dickinson and whether or not the poem was really a fake, but further what happened to Daniel Lombard0 who bought the fake poem? Did he receive a refund from Sotheby's? How did he explain this fraud to all the people who donated money to buy the this fake poem?
That was one disappointment. The other disappointment was the number of typos and grammar errors throughout the book. Actually, I wasn't all that interested in Hofmann's story. But Hoffmann is the main character in the book (more than Emily Dickinson, even though her picture is on the cover and she is "the poet" referred to in the title). Well, let's just say it wasn't exactly what I had wanted or expected.
June 28, 2022
Emily Dickenson is literature's princess, widely known and celebrated. Mark Hoffman is more of a shadowy pariah, particularly in the ranks of the Mormon Church or Latter Day Saints. It would be fair to say that most people have heard of Dickinson while few have heard of Hoffman. Ironically, the challenge the author Worrall faces in turning this true crime story into a fascinating read is to balance Dickinson's secretive life against Hoffman's chaotic one.
Forgery is in itself an extremely unknown art and not one that fascinates the public like more high profile crimes. However, when the act of forgery leads to murder in the form of the bombings that Hoffman executed in the 1980's it definitely makes for front page news. The LDS religion has no shortage of drama and lurid crime in its history. From the startling crimes of the Lafferty brothers documented in Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven" to the very history of the religion's conception in puritanical America that resulted in Joseph Smith's expulsion from several states.
Worrall exerts his best effort to make sense of it all, placing the protagonist of this story as America's finest writer of Victorian-age poetry. Hoffman ably fills the role of antagonist as a disenchanted son of America's Mormon legacy. One cannot help but find some sympathy in the account of his life being raised in the strict LDS structure that he eventually grows to resent as it represents an essential denial of self. Turning to his hobbies for literary expertise and analysis, Hoffman develops an acute talent for forgery. Determined to exert his newfound skills for profit, he also discovers that he may also wield the power to corrupt and humiliate the religious institution that he has grown to resent over the course of his adult life.
Worrall spends a great deal elaborating the art of forgery and executes descriptions of Hoffman's technique with forensic accuracy. Illustrating the extent of the web of deceit woven as Hoffman layers untruth upon untruth the storytelling effectively shows how in the mind of the forger, the act of fraud escalated to premeditated murder.
As evident in some of the reviews, this book strikes a bitter cord with members of the LDS Church as it delves deeply into the origins of Mormonism's theocracy itself, examining its sometimes specious process of creation by Joseph Smith. It also weaves the somewhat tragic account of Dickinson's life as a reclusive and brilliant artist, constrained by a stoic society that never truly allowed her literary brilliant to be appreciated in her time.
"The Poet and the Murderer" does an admirable job of juxtaposing both Dickinson's and Hoffman's lives against one another and also respecting the lives damaged by Hoffman's forgeries. As a true crime account, it lacks the violence of many of the popular killers of our day. However the uniqueness of Hoffman's "art" and crime deserve the treatment that Worrall has given them. As for the history of the LDS Church, their continually growing ranks are evidence that one book and even Hoffman's forgeries aren't enough to slow the popularity of one of the world's most popular modern religions.
Forgery is in itself an extremely unknown art and not one that fascinates the public like more high profile crimes. However, when the act of forgery leads to murder in the form of the bombings that Hoffman executed in the 1980's it definitely makes for front page news. The LDS religion has no shortage of drama and lurid crime in its history. From the startling crimes of the Lafferty brothers documented in Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven" to the very history of the religion's conception in puritanical America that resulted in Joseph Smith's expulsion from several states.
Worrall exerts his best effort to make sense of it all, placing the protagonist of this story as America's finest writer of Victorian-age poetry. Hoffman ably fills the role of antagonist as a disenchanted son of America's Mormon legacy. One cannot help but find some sympathy in the account of his life being raised in the strict LDS structure that he eventually grows to resent as it represents an essential denial of self. Turning to his hobbies for literary expertise and analysis, Hoffman develops an acute talent for forgery. Determined to exert his newfound skills for profit, he also discovers that he may also wield the power to corrupt and humiliate the religious institution that he has grown to resent over the course of his adult life.
Worrall spends a great deal elaborating the art of forgery and executes descriptions of Hoffman's technique with forensic accuracy. Illustrating the extent of the web of deceit woven as Hoffman layers untruth upon untruth the storytelling effectively shows how in the mind of the forger, the act of fraud escalated to premeditated murder.
As evident in some of the reviews, this book strikes a bitter cord with members of the LDS Church as it delves deeply into the origins of Mormonism's theocracy itself, examining its sometimes specious process of creation by Joseph Smith. It also weaves the somewhat tragic account of Dickinson's life as a reclusive and brilliant artist, constrained by a stoic society that never truly allowed her literary brilliant to be appreciated in her time.
"The Poet and the Murderer" does an admirable job of juxtaposing both Dickinson's and Hoffman's lives against one another and also respecting the lives damaged by Hoffman's forgeries. As a true crime account, it lacks the violence of many of the popular killers of our day. However the uniqueness of Hoffman's "art" and crime deserve the treatment that Worrall has given them. As for the history of the LDS Church, their continually growing ranks are evidence that one book and even Hoffman's forgeries aren't enough to slow the popularity of one of the world's most popular modern religions.
December 22, 2022
At first I thought to give this 3 stars because there's no footnotes, no pictures, no bibliography, and only a few direct quotes and sources. It's clear at times he's drawing some biased conclusions and sometimes even making some leaps. Then I thought maybe it's more honest to not back up his opinion with sources etc. This isn't academic, it's not exhaustive, or authoritative. Worrall did his investigation and wrote up his takeaway. At least that's how you have to read this, as very subjective and almost like a novel. And after learning about auction houses, forgery, and churches that function as very lucrative businesses we should bring this kind of skepticism to every part of our lives.
I couldn't help giving 4 stars because I enjoyed the writing style so much. Strong descriptive sentences that got right to the heart of the matter with only as many words as absolutely necessary. That is HARD to do and so very RARE. I appreciate it so much that it moved me to a higher rating than I normally would for this type of book.
For example, here's his description of Salt Lake City, a city I've been to many times, but he made me see it in a new way. "On a clear winter day Salt Lake City seems to float above the Great Salt Basin like a fata morgana in the Sahara. It is partly the light, but most of all it is the way the city suddenly rears up out of the desert, framed by the Wasatch Mountains, which rise, jagged and sublime, like the backdrop to a Wagner opera. Looming at the end of the wide avenues that crisscross the city in a severe Euclidean grid, the mountains foreshorten distances and distort scales. This sense of unreality is heightened by the presence, in the heart of the city, of a cathedral-like neo-Gothic building." p 64. That was from my favorite chapter, Chapter Five, "In the Land of Urim and Thummim" where he gave a succinct and accurate description of Joseph Smith, Mormonism, and its early history.
I also gave this book 4 stars because it was so fascinating learning about auction houses, the history of forgery which goes back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the science of handwriting analysis, and the art and science of forgery.
There were errors, I'm suspicious of some his connections and conclusions, but like someone who wants to believe a new Emily Dickinson poem has been discovered, I can't help but be seduced by his good, fast, strong writing and engaging storytelling.
I couldn't help giving 4 stars because I enjoyed the writing style so much. Strong descriptive sentences that got right to the heart of the matter with only as many words as absolutely necessary. That is HARD to do and so very RARE. I appreciate it so much that it moved me to a higher rating than I normally would for this type of book.
For example, here's his description of Salt Lake City, a city I've been to many times, but he made me see it in a new way. "On a clear winter day Salt Lake City seems to float above the Great Salt Basin like a fata morgana in the Sahara. It is partly the light, but most of all it is the way the city suddenly rears up out of the desert, framed by the Wasatch Mountains, which rise, jagged and sublime, like the backdrop to a Wagner opera. Looming at the end of the wide avenues that crisscross the city in a severe Euclidean grid, the mountains foreshorten distances and distort scales. This sense of unreality is heightened by the presence, in the heart of the city, of a cathedral-like neo-Gothic building." p 64. That was from my favorite chapter, Chapter Five, "In the Land of Urim and Thummim" where he gave a succinct and accurate description of Joseph Smith, Mormonism, and its early history.
I also gave this book 4 stars because it was so fascinating learning about auction houses, the history of forgery which goes back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the science of handwriting analysis, and the art and science of forgery.
There were errors, I'm suspicious of some his connections and conclusions, but like someone who wants to believe a new Emily Dickinson poem has been discovered, I can't help but be seduced by his good, fast, strong writing and engaging storytelling.
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