Why was the Renaissance also the golden age of forgery? Forgery is an eternal problem. In literature and the writing of history, suspiciously attributed texts can be uniquely revealing when subjected to a nuanced critique. False and spurious writings impinge on social and political realities to a degree rarely confronted by the biographical criticism of yesteryear. They deserve a more critical reading of the sort far more often bestowed on canonical works of poetry and prose fiction. The first comprehensive treatment of literary and historiographical forgery to appear in a quarter of a century, Literary Forgery in Early Modern Europe, 1450-1800 goes well beyond questions of authorship, spotlighting the imaginative vitality of forgery and its sinister impact on genuine scholarship. This volume demonstrates that early modern forgery was a literary tradition in its own right, with distinctive connections to politics, Greek and Roman classics, religion, philosophy, and modern literature. The thirteen essays draw immediate inspiration from Johns Hopkins University's acquisition of the Bibliotheca Fictiva, the world's premier research collection dedicated exclusively to the subject of literary forgery, which consists of several thousand rare books and unique manuscript materials from the early modern period and beyond. The early modern explosion in forgery of all kinds-particularly in the kindred documentary fields of literary and archaeological falsification-was the most visible symptom of a dramatic shift in attitudes toward historical evidence and in the relation of texts to contemporary society. The authors capture the impact of this evolution within many fundamental cultural transformations, including the rise of print, changing tastes and fortunes of the literary marketplace, and the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. Contributors: Frederic Clark, James Coleman, Richard Cooper, Arthur Freeman, Anthony Grafton, A. Katie Harris, Earle A. Havens, Jack Lynch, Shana D. O'Connell, Ingrid Rowland, Walter Stephens, Elly Truitt, Kate Tunstall

Evergreen-the long-time home of the Garrett family in north Baltimore-offers a preeminent example of antebellum-American Italianate architecture. It also houses a remarkably diverse collection of over 50,000 objects, including paintings, furniture, sculpture, ceramics, and rare books. Acquired by two generations of the prominent Garrett family, self-described "collectors by instinct and by education," the assemblage of fine and decorative arts is remarkable in scope and inventiveness. Now part of the Johns Hopkins University, the mansion endures as a rare visual encyclopedia, representative of nearly all major architectural and design movements indicative of America's transition from a predominantly agrarian society to a world industrial power. This meticulously researched and handsomely illustrated volume honors the distinct and richly layered collections that characterize Evergreen. The book opens with a history of the philanthropic family itself, which helped run the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and develop many of the Monument City's most important civic and cultural institutions. Tracing their evolution as collectors and philanthropists, the book charts the family's artistic tastes and aesthetic sensibilities from the Gilded Age to the World Wars while also describing the physical landscape and architecture of Evergreen. The Asian Art section explores the world renowned Garrett Collection of Chinese and Japanese art. As one of the earliest American collections of Japanese art assembled, it provides an important insight into collecting habits of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Among its highlights is one of only a half dozen examples of blue lacquer known to exist, as well as examples of Chinese Imperial porcelain. The Decorative Arts section highlights the furniture, textiles, and other applied arts largely commissioned or collected by the Garretts. Beginning with the Aesthetic Movement of the 1880s and the talents of renowned design firms such as Herter Brothers, Liberty & Company, and Louis C. Tiffany and Company, Evergreen's interiors have embraced each succeeding decorative trend-including the Bourbon, Colonial, Empire, and Renaissance revivals, the Arts and Crafts movement, and European modernism. The Fine Arts section showcases modernist art assembled by Alice Warder Garrett and her husband, Ambassador John Work Garrett. Credited as the first Baltimore "gallery" to exhibit a Picasso, Evergreen's collection of drawings, paintings, and sculpture document the couple's aesthetic appreciation and connoisseurship, which began at the threshold of World War I. Included are works by such artists as Pierre Bonnard, Jean-Edouard Vuillard, Leon Bakst, Miguel Covarrubias, Raoul Dufy, Herbert Haseltine, Amedeo Modigliani, and Ignacio Zuloaga. Evergreen's John Work Garrett Library, built between the years immediately following the American Civil War and World War II, ranks among the most extensive private American collections of its kind from that period. Highlights include a recently discovered and ambitious rare book desiderata manuscript from the headiest period of John Work Garrett's book collecting in 1929; an original John James Audubon engraved metal plate for his double-elephant folio Birds of America, a complete copy of which is also held by the library; the Garrett Zafarnama, a sumptuously illustrated fifteenth-century Persian illuminated manuscript by the renowned artist Bihzad; and all four seventeenth-century folios of Shakespeare's collected plays. A celebration of one of Baltimore's grandest nineteenth-century mansions, Evergreen reveals fascinating life stories through the richly preserved family archive and the historical context that remains through Evergreen's evolving architectural spaces and growing collections. This volume will appeal to art collectors and lovers of historic houses, museums, and libraries, as well as readers fascinated by the intersection of art and architecture, literature and history, and the history of ideas and collecting.