LITERARY HOAXES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 23

LITERARY HOAXES.

MYSTERIES AND FORGERIES. DIARY OF A YOUNG LADY. MISS KING-HALL'S' PROTOTYPES. How one of the greatest "spoofs" in literature was worked off on a guileless public was explained by a cable received last Saturday, which stated that Miss King-Half, granddaughter of a former admittil in charge of the Australian Naval Station, had admitted the authorship of one of the literary sensations of the year, "The Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion of 1764-65,'' of which 30,000 copies were sold in three months. The diary was recognised as a hoax some months ago, but its perpetrator remained a mystery until this 10-year-old conspirator confessed. It was remarkably well done, the literary style of the age being reproduced with amazing fidelity, while the spirit of the time and its social life and characteristics were equally well portrayed. But even Homer nods, and the diarist gave herself away in one of two minor details: trifling ' slips, but enough to prove that somebody had attempted to "pull the leg" of the general public. For instance. Mr. A. A. Ponsonby, one of the greatest authorities on old-time stylists, pointed out that the lady spoke of calling for her "sedan chair." when she should have simply said "chair"; and a reference to dates showed that she was supposed to be reading Horace Walpole's "The Cask of Otranto" seven months before it was published. It was a clever hoax though, even those who refused to be taken in by it agreed that it was a smart piece of work and considered that it must have been written by one . steeped hi the literature of the day. Now the cat is out of the bag, and we know that tiie diary was prompted by discoveries in an old attic used as a panacea for the great disease of modernity— boredom. The diary purported to be the secret revelations of a young Irish beauty, Cleone Knox, and its alleged discoverer was a Mr. Kerr, wlio. in his preface, said that the diary had long been among his family papers, and gave a brief history of the writer. So ingeniously was the whole thing handled that thousands of readers accepted the "discovery" as genuine, and but for the anachronisms mentioned the secret would probably have remained undiseln-ed until Miss Kins-Hall thought the time was ripe for "blowing the gaff" (> '»c mystery remains, however: t lie cable man says that the. revelation describe* naughtr enisode= which a girl not long from school is supposed to be unfamiliar with. The mystery i- thai anyone should believe that there is anything too piquant- to come within the orbit of the modern flapper of 10 The apparatus for the detection ot the literary fakir is too elaborate nowadays for the Fterarv forger The philologist, the historian of fact, the antiqnar'nn and the scientist are all there waifiMt. t« trap the adventurer when be mn'w the mis-step. "One toot and y'l-r 00l '•' a* the Scottish verier said to i-he In'v with Die ear truinnet Tt te 1 c«. q cm">iv to truvel Ihroii'h 4"i» nnnrps without once lev in" i. be i>,i Mi i{ml perhaps one 'on svmnaib'--e a litt|-> with h'm when lite wolf p.T'k i- so hot on his trail. A Ion" and excellent list of forgcrehoaxe- I'r.-I iiM-sterh'S. lias provided the literurv world with sensations in the pa;f The ,'"eatest of these were, of cour<e Miwubersnn's "Ossian." and Chatteit'Oi*- "llowlev" poems. In Mt',-2 Jam"* M:tep l 'cs.,n began the pnblica-j tion of a series of noems describing j the exnloits of Fingall. a Celtic hero i of history's ilmvn. He claimed that] _~P V ~-..,-'. ' >-• ~s | »■:.."* from "Ossian," | a r,«'t : c 11,.-ii"". The-e '.'rev. dour prose; :,.■..•••* nvi,""'"l '■••' •!"""• >e<l nnd full j ot rn< - -',''o' ; u'i •■■< immense p'opu- j laritv and the t'-.i made £\W. nut o. the -le n ;: " *""■ for a literary effort in tho-e d>y- The n.ithen'icit.v | of the poems we- soon ehal'ensed. Dr. 1 Johnson being the leader of those refusing to accent them, I his.grave in lTHfi without ad- , mittinc that he had practised deceit upon bis readers, but there is now no room for doubt that there was no original to translate, and that, at mos-, his° inspiration came from Highland folk-lore. Hard upon the heels of the "Ossian" came the boy, Thomas Chatterton, with his tale of fifteenth century manuscripts found in an old chest in his j mother's house in Bristol. They included, he said, the writings of Thomas a merchant of Bristol, and his priestly friend, Thomas Rowley. The forgeries were remarkably well | done and they deceived many nnti-, quarians, but they were quickly proved to be spurious, though their merit as 1 pcetrv remains undeniable. Cunoudy enough, when Chatterton dropped the, antiqiie verbiage his poems were very j mneli inferior in quality. i

For generations tbe "Conversations of j Ben Johnson and Drumraond of Haw-j tbornden" first printed in 1711, were! accepted a"s authentic, but the investiga- j tions of Mr. C. L. Stainer seem to prove | that they must be "relegated to the mar-1 gin " as forgeries. There is no trace of j the manuscript of the conversations, but j Sir Robert Sibbald's manuscript has been I accepted as a copy made before 1710 of the lost Drummond MS. Mr. Stainer asserts that Sibbald. with the help of Drummond's son, perpetrated a very | elaborate hoax. Mr. Stainer has made j out a very fair case, even if it is not | quite convincing. j The deception practised upon Sir Wal-1 ter Scott by Robert Surtees is another j famous instance of imposition. Surtees,. a Durham antiquary, sent Scott an old i border ballad r?latiuj» to a feud between, the Ridley* and the Featherstones, allegin~ that lie had got it from an old gipsy. •Scott believed it to be genuine and inserted it in bis next edition of "Border .Minstrelsy."' Next year Surtees repeated the dose, and the deceit was not made known till after Surtees' death. He had evidently taken in his old friend from no other reason but the malicious joy of it. The Shakespearean forgeries of Ireland, which imposed on David Oarrick, and the Payne Collier forgeries of contemporary notes on Shakespeare's plays are other examples of cheeky efforts to dupe the republic of letters, which failed dismally enough when the acid test was applied.

Of a different type was the sensation provided by "The Letters of Junius." These began in 1709. and for two years tbe masterly series of polemical articles stilled Lord North's Government to fury. Nobody knew who wrote them, but vow little doubt remains but that tjiey were the work of Philip Francis, a War Office clerk, who afterwards went to India as a member of the. Council of Bengal. ' '-- ,