Simon Worrall's investigation into the life and crimes of arguably
the most accomplished literary forger the world has ever seen is
one of those real-life detective stories you simply cannot put
down. In the late 1990s, Worrall read an article about a poem by
the reclusive American poet Emily Dickinson which had been
auctioned at Sotheby's for $21,000 but later returned as a forgery.
Intrigued as to how anyone could produce such an apparently perfect
fake, persuade world experts of its authenticity and have it sold
by one of the world's leading auction houses, Worrall contacted the
buyer of the document and thus started out on the trail of Mark
Hoffman. Hoffmann hated and despised the Mormon religion into which
he had been born, and at the age of 14 discovered an aptitude for
forgery. He set about undermining the central tenets of the faith
by producing a string of forged letters, diary entries and tracts
which were remarkable not only for their technical mastery and the
painstaking historical research which supported them but also for
the way in which Hoffmann used self-hypnosis to get into the mind
of the putative author and produce entirely convincing documents.
Hoffmann became obsessed with the feeling of power which his
apparent ability to rewrite history gave him and ever more
dependant on the huge amounts of money which he could command, and
it was these two factors which were to bring about his downfall. A
combination of complacency and increased borrowing to fund his
extravagant lifestyle and obsessive desire for rare books caused
his web of deceit to unravel, and in a last-ditch attempt to cover
his tracks he had no compunction in using home-made bombs to commit
a double murder with the same detached ruthlessness with which he
had produced and disseminated his forgeries. In this riveting
account Worrall not only lays bear the workings of the mind of a
master forger and murderer but also provides fascinating accounts
of the history and methodology of forgery and an insight into the
shady dealings of the Mormon Church and the great auction houses of
the world. (Kirkus UK)
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 which stretched right across America. As Worrall utangles 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 which 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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