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Forgers and Critics, New Edition: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship
The close links between forgery and criticism throughout history
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.
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.
- GenresHistory
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 7, 1990
About the author
Anthony Grafton
105 books66 followersAnthony Thomas Grafton is an American historian of early modern Europe and the Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, where he is also the Director the Program in European Cultural Studies. He is also a corresponding fellow of the British Academy and a recipient of the Balzan Prize. From January 2011 to January 2012, he served as the President of the American Historical Association. From 2006 to 2020, Grafton was co-executive editor of the Journal of the History of Ideas.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 2, 2023
La thèse de Grafton : il n'y a pas une coupure radical entre la critique philologique et la création d'un faux. Cette thèse est défendue avec brio, dans un livre peut être un peu court.
May 3, 2023
Anthony Grafton is one of the greatest living scholars of early modern Europe. Several of his books, including his work on figures like Joseph Scaliger, Girolamo Cardano and Leon Battista Alberti, have shed a tremendous amount of light on the cultural world of the Renaissance. While the book purports to be a “wide-ranging exploration of the links between forgery and scholarship,” it provides a narrow look at four examples leaving the reader with no “bigger picture” in sight.
At its heart, this book is about our obsession with authority and “originality,” which sounds like it might be easy to define but gets hard to pin down when the subjects of the discussion are texts with centuries-long histories. Not only does this obsession exist on the part of forgers who are trying to impart some a sense of authenticity where none exists, but also on the “true scholars” who come out of the various schools of textual criticism. Forgery and pseudepigraphy (Grafton distinguishes between the two) not only led scholars astray, but directly contributed to the rise of criticism. In fact, Grafton thinks textual criticism as we know it today wasn’t the result of some independent need for it but instead the result of a slow accretion of practices and methodologies which arose because of fabricators in the first place. “Forger and critics have been entangled through time like Laocoon and his serpents,” he writes.
The basic idea is that both critics and forgers formed a kind of mutualistic relationship, slowly refining both of their crafts after familiarizing themselves with the work of the other. Along the way, Grafton occasionally traces historical motifs like the one of the “found object” Acusilaus of Argos likely first perpetrated when he claimed to have found some bronze tablets in his garden; this lie would eventually become the strategy du jour for forgeries in the nineteenth century as the Romantics found themselves increasingly enchanted with the old, decrepit, and fragmentary. Grafton contends that the very ruse of forgery can only be believed for so long. In trying to get a text to look like it is from a different time and place, the forger inevitably leaves behind tell-tale signs of her handiwork: “Any forger, however deft, imprints the pattern and text of his own period’s life, thought, and language on the past he hopes to make seem real and vivid,” he writes.
Chapter Three looks at the work of three critics – Porphyry, Isaac Casaubon (who very well may have been the inspiration for George Eliot’s character Edward Casaubon), and Richard Reitzenstein – all of whom suffered from vitiated critical powers when they were working with texts that undergirded their own biases and assumptions. One can guess that the pitfall of confirmation bias will always be a bete noire of literary studies.
The seed of this book was originally a small set of lectures Grafton delivered which someone later suggested he expand into book form. While providing the occasional insight, this is very much a book that gives a look at the individual trees but misses the view from the forest canopy. This is a shame. Because of the unfinished, not-quite-effective lecture-into-book aura the book exudes, it ultimately feels, ironically, like a bit of a fabrication itself, perhaps too quickly rushed to press. Hopefully sometime in the future, he’ll be able to revisit it, fill in some of the interstices of his argument, and make the book twice as long. If that book ever comes, I’ll gladly re-read it with relish.
At its heart, this book is about our obsession with authority and “originality,” which sounds like it might be easy to define but gets hard to pin down when the subjects of the discussion are texts with centuries-long histories. Not only does this obsession exist on the part of forgers who are trying to impart some a sense of authenticity where none exists, but also on the “true scholars” who come out of the various schools of textual criticism. Forgery and pseudepigraphy (Grafton distinguishes between the two) not only led scholars astray, but directly contributed to the rise of criticism. In fact, Grafton thinks textual criticism as we know it today wasn’t the result of some independent need for it but instead the result of a slow accretion of practices and methodologies which arose because of fabricators in the first place. “Forger and critics have been entangled through time like Laocoon and his serpents,” he writes.
The basic idea is that both critics and forgers formed a kind of mutualistic relationship, slowly refining both of their crafts after familiarizing themselves with the work of the other. Along the way, Grafton occasionally traces historical motifs like the one of the “found object” Acusilaus of Argos likely first perpetrated when he claimed to have found some bronze tablets in his garden; this lie would eventually become the strategy du jour for forgeries in the nineteenth century as the Romantics found themselves increasingly enchanted with the old, decrepit, and fragmentary. Grafton contends that the very ruse of forgery can only be believed for so long. In trying to get a text to look like it is from a different time and place, the forger inevitably leaves behind tell-tale signs of her handiwork: “Any forger, however deft, imprints the pattern and text of his own period’s life, thought, and language on the past he hopes to make seem real and vivid,” he writes.
Chapter Three looks at the work of three critics – Porphyry, Isaac Casaubon (who very well may have been the inspiration for George Eliot’s character Edward Casaubon), and Richard Reitzenstein – all of whom suffered from vitiated critical powers when they were working with texts that undergirded their own biases and assumptions. One can guess that the pitfall of confirmation bias will always be a bete noire of literary studies.
The seed of this book was originally a small set of lectures Grafton delivered which someone later suggested he expand into book form. While providing the occasional insight, this is very much a book that gives a look at the individual trees but misses the view from the forest canopy. This is a shame. Because of the unfinished, not-quite-effective lecture-into-book aura the book exudes, it ultimately feels, ironically, like a bit of a fabrication itself, perhaps too quickly rushed to press. Hopefully sometime in the future, he’ll be able to revisit it, fill in some of the interstices of his argument, and make the book twice as long. If that book ever comes, I’ll gladly re-read it with relish.
December 13, 2025
“Paul Coleman-Norton of Princeton University published a new Greek fragment drawn from a set of homilies on the Gospel according to Matthew. The text continues the passage in Matthew 24 where Jesus tells his disciples that those who are assigned the portion of the hypocrites will be condemned to ‘“‘weeping and gnashing of teeth.”’ In the new section a disciple raises an objection: what, he asks, will happen to the toothless? ‘“‘O ye of little faith,’ Jesus replies, “‘teeth will be provided.’’
With an enjoyable mix of scholarship and whimsy (one of my favorite combinations) Grafton explores the close interrelationship between forgery of classical source material and criticism—showing over and over how one has informed the other over the years. His comparison of how Porphyry, Isaac Casubon ( “He married early and had many children, becoming the prototypical philoprogenitive scholar who writes enormous, learned books with his right hand while rocking the newest baby’s cradle with his left foot.”), and Richard Reitzenstein (1861-1931) worked over the ancient Hermetic Corpus lies at the core of his disquisition, I think. He calls forgery a “literary form” of its own, and understands that it’s hard work; even Erasmus was guilty of both. I could have wished for more illustrations, but this was still fairly readable and great fun.
Discovered an ebook version available through an online database from my public library. Horray for NYPL!
With an enjoyable mix of scholarship and whimsy (one of my favorite combinations) Grafton explores the close interrelationship between forgery of classical source material and criticism—showing over and over how one has informed the other over the years. His comparison of how Porphyry, Isaac Casubon ( “He married early and had many children, becoming the prototypical philoprogenitive scholar who writes enormous, learned books with his right hand while rocking the newest baby’s cradle with his left foot.”), and Richard Reitzenstein (1861-1931) worked over the ancient Hermetic Corpus lies at the core of his disquisition, I think. He calls forgery a “literary form” of its own, and understands that it’s hard work; even Erasmus was guilty of both. I could have wished for more illustrations, but this was still fairly readable and great fun.
Discovered an ebook version available through an online database from my public library. Horray for NYPL!
December 27, 2023
True crime for book lovers. The opening section is particularly good where he gives an overview of literary forgeries down to the early modern period. Then he gets into various cases in more detail and finally the techniques and people who detected the frauds. It’s not separate case studies, but rather Grafton has a really smooth way of writing whereby he brings in a whole load of factoids along the way. Learned, but not all technical, and very interesting.
March 24, 2026
Autores que eran críticos con los documentos falsos (que alegaban ser fuentes de una época cuando realmente no lo eran, o contenian datos históricos falsos) despues usaban falsificaciones que les convenían para apoyar su ideología o las hacían ellos mismos andaaa no sabian na
March 6, 2017
Il tema sarebbe anche interessante, ma il libro è confuso, spiega un po' a casaccio le cose. Non ha un filo conduttore.
October 4, 2023
Not exactly what I was expecting, but mostly interesting.
October 28, 2023
Read for school. Really interesting and I definitely overall enjoyed this. I feel like the overview chapter did too much and then at the same time the book was too short? Anyways, that’s if I’m being super critical his thesis is very slay
June 8, 2021
This book is a great introduction to forgery. This edition was published in 2019 and is an updated version of the original from 1990. It’s mainly authored by Anthony Grafton but the forward is by Ann Blair.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews