The Forger's Shadow: How Forgery Changed the Course of Literture

by Nick Groom

Effortlessly ranging from eighteenth-century banknote forgery to the formation of literary copyright, The Forgers Shadow sheds light on the plagiarisms, the counterfeits and the forgeries of our literary past. At its centre are such figures as Thomas Chatterton and Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, who have haunted our imaginations for years. This fascinating account reveals how the influence of these forgers on literature, from Dickens to the present day, cannot be underestimated.

Genres: History

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Nick Groom, known as the “Prof of Goth,” is professor of English at Exeter University, UK. His previous titles include The Gothic: A Very Short Introduction, and The Seasons: A Celebration of the English Year, which was shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award and came runner-up for BBC Countryfile Book of the Year.

Reviews

[Ellie]

I’m not giving this a rating, because I put it down after finishing the first chapter.

Groom claims to “define” forgery, which he really actually doesn’t. A typology such as the one presented by A. Grafton I think is much more effective.
In the first chapter, Groom attempts to define and distinguish between multiple terms (e.g., forgery, imitation, copy, mimesis, plagiarism, etc.) and starts out with ‘originality’. But again: he doesn’t actually define anything. He cites historical authors/forgers and their descriptions of originality and then “sums up” his point (which he doesn’t actually pronounce at all, he just “reviews” those he cites) by means of a poem. It’s a nice literary twist in the theory-heavy discourse on forgery for sure, but does it constitute a useful working definition? No, not at all. And then, lacking a concept of originality, Groom attempts to explain the multiple concepts that are a violation of that originality he fails (neglects?) to define. In this way Groom’s argument becomes an ineffective, pointless circular argument shrouded in flowery literary language. It’s a nice thinking exercise Groom presents, but for someone who claims to “define” such complex concepts he does a remarkably poor job at it.

[Luke · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't normally write throwaway reviews, but in this case I'm kind of compelled to as I feel reading this has left me with a mindset similar to that of a drained-battery talking toy: all slurred nonsense and encroaching entropy.

That's not what you want from something that, on the face of it, should be a ball-tearing recitation of forgery, counterfeit and outright literary bullshittery.

There's portraits of famed fakes, that's for sure: the early-dead Thomas Chatterton, the pugnacious James Macpherson, William Henry the Bard-fancier and poisoner Thomas Wainewright. But there's a feeling of overly-academic stultification to the copy, and it's difficult to follow a line through the text. Here's a sample sentence.

Chatterton was always pictured as a youth with shoulder-length hair rather than as a young buck in a peruke; he was pictured as bright-eyed, even goggle-eyed in one posthumous portrait; of course there was his opium eating and, like Adam in Eden, his vegetarianism.

And that's one of the better ones.

There's too much uncertainty, too much bolstering with literary theory. I spent the first third of the book waiting for the slack to be taken up, for excitement to build, and it didn't.

I gave this two stars because there is a goodly amount of research and reference in here. There's no doubt Groom has spent a lot of time researching his subjects: it's just that without the apparent hand of an editor, the book is unable to escape the author's weight of words.