
The House of Forgery in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Paul Baines(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 30. June 2020
Book
Hardback
195 pages
978-0-367-19545-8 (ISBN)
Description
Published in 1999, this work offers a balanced interdisciplinary account of literary and criminal forgery as they were practised, constructed and theorized in the 18th century as a corollary of the new documents of the financial revolution: banknotes, bills of exchange and promissory notes. The book surveys the crime and its mythology, placing well-known cases such as that of Dr. William Dodd within the pattern of 400 prosecutions from the period 1715-1780. In parallel, accounts of some major instances of literary forgery are rooted in a more pervasive culture in which "forgery" was discovered in many developing areas of literary practice: scholarly editing, historiography and antiquarianism. One surprising aspect of this study is the extent to which literary figures were involved in matters of criminal as well as literary forgery. It is suggested that the two kinds of forgery have unexpected connections with each other through the economy of literature which, following the development of copyright, regarded the signature of authorship as the legal site of literary authenticity, and through the economic and legal culture of forgery prosecutions, in which bogus "writing" came to signify a whole range of problems of personal and literary character. The study is based on a very large body of diverse material, from major texts such as "The Dunciad" and "Lives of the English Poets" to hundreds of minor poems, controversial pamphlets, criminal biographies, newspapers, legal records and manuscripts.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
540 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-367-19545-8 (9780367195458)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
09/2021
1st Edition
Routledge
€58.80
Shipment within 15-20 days

E-Book
07/2019
1st Edition
Routledge
€48.49
Available for download

E-Book
07/2019
1st Edition
Routledge
€48.49
Available for download
Person
Paul Baines
Content
1. An Age of Forgery. 2. Script and Scripture. 3. Ward, Crook and Company. 4. 'Man's First Disobedience': Lauder, Johnson and Literary Crime. 5. Johnson, Ossian and the Highland Tour. 6. The Many Lives of Doctor Dodd. 7. 'All of the House of Forgery': Chatterton, Walpole and Antiquarian Commerce.