"The Poet and the Murderer" by Simon Worrall

[Gonzales]

This is one of the most gripping non-fiction books I have read for a long time. It recounts the forgery career of Mark Hofmann, a confidence trickster who was able to pull the wool over the eyes of numerous collectors of rare manuscripts and, ultimately, one of the world's biggest auction houses. Now, whenever I read in the newspapers of some rare manuscript or art work being acquired for X million $/€/Yen I wonder whether it is what it purports to be.

Mark Hofmann is no ordinary murderer. Until he was incarcerated he was the world’s greatest literary forger: a man who combined meticulous historical research with craftsmanship and forensic science. In 1997, one of his most accomplished forgeries, a poem by the much-loved 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, turned up at a Sotheby’s and was sold for $21,000 to the library in Dickinson’s home town, Amherst.

In ‘The Poet and the Murderer’ Simon Worrall reveals the psychology of a master forger and a ruthless killer, a man whose love for books developed into an uncontrollable compulsion. Desperate to acquire some of the rarest manuscripts on the market, Hofmann resorted to ever more elaborate schemes to raise money, and spun a web of deceit that stretched right across America. As Worrall untangles the truth from the lies, he grapples with the history of literary forgery, the science of forensic testing and the glamour of the auction houses. A true story that encompasses the love of learning, graphology and poetry, ‘The Poet and the Murderer’ is also a chilling dissection of a man driven from verse to violence.

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SPD Gonzales