HARDY POEM FORGED

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 October 1928, Page 10

HARDY POEM FORGED

FAKE EXPOSED. Forgers are busy with Hardy MSS.I They are at work in London, and are attempting to exploit the market there and in America. The first known forgery to be sold in London since Hardy’s death is the poem on Keats. The discovery was made by Mr T. J. Wise, the "well-known collector of first editions. “As Hardy gave me the Keats poem MS.” said Mr Wise to a. “Daily Chronicle”. representative, “and it is still in my possession, I have the best reason of all for knowing that the other is a forgery. The forgery was recently bought by a young American collector and taken to Messrs Riviere and Son to be bound. At first Mi' Calkin, the head of the firm, was impressed with the find, but before binding it up he showed it to me. I have the original of that forgery,” I said to him, and produced it for his inspection. It was a dramatic moment!

“Ou my advice Mr Calkin sent the faked poem to Mr Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, Hardy’s literary executor, who promptly declared it ‘an impudent forgery.’ The owner has been advised to tear up the poem, but he may have it bound as a Curiosity. At any rate, it will never have an opportunity of deceiving anybody again. I think the genuin Hardy poem would fetch £l5O, but I am not selling it. It was given to me, years ago, when I was ,a member of the committee which

raised funds to buy Keats’ house at Hampstead. Hardy was greatly interested in the scheme and the poem was his contribution to the fund. After the premises had been acquired he made a copy of the manuscript, and presented it to the committee for use as an exhibit. There are thus two manuscripts of the one poem in. existence. ”■ Mr Calkin added that no complaint has been made to the police, and that his young American client is “in midAtlantic on his way home.”