The Book Forger: The True Story of a Literary Crime that Fooled the World (2024) by Joseph Hone

• Do you like collecting books?
• Do you like bibliomysteries?
• Do you enjoy reading about unlikely duos solving crime?
• Do you enjoy reading about villains who hide their misdeeds behind a respectable social veneer?

If you have answered yes to most of these questions, then Joseph Hone’s book could be a good fit for you. Hone whets the appetites of his readers in his prologue describing the two men who uncovered Thomas James Wises’ deceptions, as the ‘Poirots of the library, Holmeses of the book world, bibliographical detectives rooting out suspicious discrepancies with their fastidious eyes for fonts and printings.’ He also gives us our first glimpse at the literary criminal, writing that Wise:

‘[…] was perhaps the greatest collector of them all. He was a pugnacious burster of bubbles, a pioneer of modern firsts, a scourge of fools and double-dealers, a figure of unquestioned and questionable authority. He was also a liar, a thief, and a forger.’

Synopsis

‘A true detective story from the age of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers: the literary crime that fooled the world – and the daring young booksellers who uncovered it

London, 1932. Thomas James Wise is the toast of the literary establishment. A prominent collector and businessman, he is renowned on both sides of the Atlantic for unearthing the most stunning first editions and bringing them to market. Pompous and fearsome, with friends in high places, he is one of the most powerful men in the field of rare books.

One night, two young booksellers – one a dishevelled former communist, the other a martini-swilling fan of detective stories – stumble upon a strange discrepancy. It will lead them to suspect Wise and his books are not all they seem. Inspired by the vogue for Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, the pair harness the latest developments in forensic analysis to crack the case, but find its extent is greater than they ever could have imagined. By the time they are done, their investigation will have rocked the book world to its core.

This is the true story of unlikely friends coming together to expose the literary crime of the century, and of a maverick bibliophile who forged not only books but an entire life, erasing his past along the way.’

Overall Thoughts

Yet before Wise can be unmasked in the 1930s, he has to commit some crimes first, so Hone kicks off his book by going back in time to 1886, when the Shelley Society was established. Readers may be puzzled why such details are gone into, but it transpires that Thomas James Wise was involved in the society, so therefore this period in his life is used as a springboard into his own early years and his love of book collecting. The society gave Wise his first literary contacts and his first experiences of getting books reprinted (legally and otherwise).

In recent years it has become a common narrative strategy for non-fiction writers to start a chapter or a new section by reconstructing a moment in history, which hooks into the main topic or person they are writing about. What are your thoughts on this approach? My own feelings on it as mixed, as with all writing strategies, it depends on how well you use them. Regarding this book, I am not sure it is always an effective structure, as in the case of the opening pages of chapter one, I didn’t feel the narrative maintained the energy and thrill generated by the prologue. However, one quote which I did like, by John Herbert Slater, was his opinion that: ‘“The true book-hunter considers himself a discoverer rather than a purchaser”’. I feel like this statement is one fellow booklovers are likely to identify with.

Looking at Wise’s younger adult years, and not knowing about what he would go on to do, it would be easy to see him as an underdog figure due to his working-class origins and you could even admire his tenacity to improve his lot in life. Yet knowing what the book is about, this sentiment is hard to hold on to with equanimity. What about the forgeries that followed and the people he conned? Why did Wise go down that road? At this early stage in the book/his life, he seems to have slid into his criminous career very easily.

Hone’s book is structured so that each chapter alternates between ones which look at the next stage in Wise’s own life and the practicalities of book forging, with ones that chart the investigation of Henry Graham Pollard and John Carter. Each chapter brings them closer and closer to identifying what Wise had been up to, and the alternating structure creates a cat and mouse feeling.

Joseph Hone’s research encompasses the difficulties of forging old books, from the technicalities of producing a convincing copy (a process which requires quite a few people – so Wise did not work alone) to providing the right evidence to support the idea that your fake book is genuine, i.e. creating false provenance. When it came to the latter aspect Wise was ingenious and devious, getting copies into the British Museum catalogue and standard reference books of the time, even insinuating himself into such writing projects, so he could direct content. Hone writes that Wise had previously:

‘[…] inserted his fakes into the historical record only after announcing their discovery […] But, he mused, with a little planning might he not create his own gaps in the record? Gaps that precisely matched the size and shape of the forgeries he was manufacturing? The vehicle for this dastardly scheme would be a multivolume series entitled Literary Anecdotes of the Nineteenth Century, the aim of which was to gather scraps of gossip about the literary titans of the Victorian era before they faded from living memory. By its very nature, the project was light on supporting evidence. And, as its editor-in-chief, Wise could sneak in whatever misinformation he wanted to see in print. When the first volume appeared in 1896, it was packed with ambiguous, misleading, and falsified details. It also contained lacunae that only a forger could fill.’

Nevertheless, whilst Hone’s book shows what Wise did well, it also hints in the earlier chapters about the mistake he might have been making, mistakes that were waiting to be discovered.

Pollard and Carter were not the first booksellers/collectors to have doubts about some of the Victorian pamphlets on the market, yet they were the first two who decided to probe into it deeper and actually do something about it. Over time the tools used to commit ever greater and more convincing acts of forgery have improved, but so too have the skills required to uncover such deceptions. This was the case for Carter and Pollard, who were able to forensically analyse the ink and paper used in the suspect pamphlets to determine their age.

Hone also provides the much bigger picture of how the nature of studying books was changing. In particular he writes about the role of the Bibliographical Society of London, of which Carter and Pollard were both members and he also homes in on one specific individual at the society: Walter Wilson Greg. He was:

 ‘[…] an independent scholar both financially and institutionally, Greg was the standard bearer for this new school of bibliography. Men such as Wise and Forman may have contented themselves with drawing up exhaustive catalogues of books, writing helpful notes on how to distinguish one edition from another, but Greg regarded this as the “mere prostitution” of bibliographical expertise […] Instead, Greg’s generation of bibliographers sought to understand how these books came into being. And their methods for doing so were, he believed, “thoroughly scientific”: paying meticulous attention to the designs of typefaces, the appearance of watermarks on paper, and the holes and rips and stains that revealed information about the journeys that books had taken since leaving the printing house. Such physical information could not lie.’

Hone goes on to argue that the showmanship and language Greg used when revealing forgeries was a sign that he had been reading Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. This was an interesting idea, although I feel Hone leads with his weakest evidence (the phrases Greg used) letting the more convincing proof follow behind. My issue with these phrases is that they’re rather generic and there is nothing in them alone which categorically pins down a link to the Holmes’ stories. However, as I said better evidence comes later:

‘One of Greg’s close friends once observed that he would submit detective novels to the same “same kind of scrutiny he gave to the variants in the first quarto of King Lear.” Another perceptive reviewer remarked that the bibliographer self-consciously displayed the “intuitive and inductive powers of a Sherlock Holmes.” Just like Holmes, who could “distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand either of cigar or tobacco,” so Greg was able at a stroke to discern specific fonts, papers, and binding varieties. For those of the “detective mind”, Greg thought it “pleasant to ponder over bibliographical and literary puzzles.” So too Holmes cannot let his mind rest until the puzzle is solved. “Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science,” Holmes proclaims before his second adventure with Watson. And while Greg took issue with the phrasing – “Is not exactitude the aim of every science?” he asked – he likewise described his own work as a “mature science”. The sentiment in each case was precisely the same. Here, at last, was a vision of the bibliographer as professional sleuth.’

Following on from this, Hone outlines the bibliographic interests of Holmes within the canonical stories. Yet Holmes is not the only famous fictional sleuth to be woven into this book. Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey, also make an appearance, but I disagree with how the former is portrayed. In chapter 10 Hones writes:

‘Unlike Christie’s dumpy Belgian sleuth, Wimsey was a debonair creation who had the tact and charm of an intelligence operative and a forensic eye for detail. The latter skill was of course a prerequisite for any detective.’

Such disparagement of Poirot (as ‘dumpy’ has derogatory connotations) , however fleeting, rather ignores the evidence in the Poirot stories, which time after time show Poirot using both ‘tact’ and ‘charm’ to obtain information from suspects and witnesses. Moreover, it is hard to argue that Poirot lacks ‘a forensic eye for detail’ when he notices tiny stains on luggage labels, the way a chair is positioned or how a chocolate box lid is mismatched with the box. I can see why Hone favours Wimsey as he has some parallels to Carter and Pollard:

‘[…] Wimsey was an enthusiastic and highly competent collector of rare books. He was precisely the sort of man with whom somebody like Carter – charming, urbane, sharp – would have rubbed extremely well. Beneath the surface, though, Wimsey perhaps had more in common with Pollard.’

This final sentence is in reference to the fact that during WW1 Lord Peter Wimsey worked for intelligence and Pollard was recruited by MI5 during the early 1930s to spy on communist activities, in particular behind the scenes at the Daily Worker. Nevertheless, despite these similarities there is no need to throw Poirot under the bus. Given Hone’s overall strong attention to detail, moments like this come across as careless.

Pollard, before being approached by MI5, was a supporter of communism. However, after the General Strike of 1926, he began to become disillusioned, and his bookselling career took up more of his time and attention. What Hone draws out in his book is how Pollard’s espionage work aided him in spotting forgeries and how it influenced the way Pollard and Carter tackled Wise. Proving that certain pamphlets were forgeries was one challenge, but another more difficult one was finding evidence that it was Thomas James Wise who commissioned them. Wise was a risky figure for Carter and Pollard to take down as he was an establishment figure, who was highly respected and liked in the book trading and collecting sphere. Their strategy began with putting the wind up Wise, talking to him about their concerns about certain publications and their intention to publish a book on the matter. The idea being to then observe what he did next, see what his next moves would be. The book in question did make it to publication, with the catchy title: An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets. This work details their evidence that various pamphlets were fakes. Links are made to Thomas James Wise, but it does not name him as the criminal instigator, though reading between the lines it would be obvious to readers that this was the conclusion to be drawn. Dorothy L. Sayers reviewed it for The Sunday Times opining that:

‘If this book could be turned into a detective novel, called The Catalogue Crimes or The Clue of the Crook-Backed F, it would grace the annals of a Carrados or a Thorndyke; for it chronicles as pretty a piece of investigation as those heroes ever accomplished.’

She also alluded to the book in Gaudy Night (1935), which is a very good spot, on Hone’s part.

It was interesting seeing how Wise responded to this book pre and post publication, as it really shines a light on how he treated others who had aided his forging career. He was not above bribery and in the case of his main co-conspirator Harry Buxton Forman, (who was then dead at that point), he had no qualms bullying and manipulating Harry’s relation into giving a statement that his relative had been duped into receiving the forged items which he had then sold on in good faith. This behaviour contrasts with Carter and Pollard who were able to make good working relationships with individuals across the world, particularly in America, who could help them find the evidence they needed. One woman with access to Havard’s library cut off bits of paper from suspected forgeries, so they could go for analysis.

Looking at The Book Forger as a whole, for me, the Carter and Pollard focused chapters were more interesting, as the chapters concerning Wise did start to feel quite samey in their content. Moreover, there were times in which I felt the literary details about certain pieces of Victorian writing got in the way of us really sensing or experiencing emotional shifts within the human side of the story. For example, at one juncture the ‘rift between Wise and his co-conspirator [Forman] grew deeper’, yet I didn’t really feel this on the page, as it was sandwiched in between more prosaic details.

However, one later chapter was more interesting on Thomas James Wise’s life, which looked at him in his 40’s. We are told that: ‘As his interest in the forgery game began to dwindle, so his crooked impulses would lead him down another shady avenue. It was time to diversify.’ This diversification went in the direction of older manuscripts such as the playbooks of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. Yet he disliked the rough and damaged states such manuscripts were often in, such as tears and missing pages. However, there was a solution: restoration. Hone notes that:

‘This practice of fixing a damaged book with leaves taken from another copy was common enough among the bookmen of Wise’s generation. Although such “made-up” copies were frowned upon by bibliographical purists, most collectors had one or two on their shelves. Some went to extraordinary lengths to disguise the fact that their most prized volumes were monstruous hybrids.’

Hone then outlines the different approaches there were when it came to restoration, including inserting genuine pages from other manuscripts into your own copy, altering them so they match with the existing manuscript. Finding such pages though was hard unsurprisingly, unless of course you were Wise, who stole the needed pages from other copies. Where did he find them, you ask? Well, the British Museum of course! These extensive thefts were only clocked in the 1950s and given Wise’s history it is not shocking to learn that he soon started selling surplus doctored manuscripts to other book collectors.

Despite such prolific book forging and stealing, the ending of this case concludes with less of a bang than the reader might be hoping for. There was no dramatic arrest and the consequences of Carter and Pollard’s book for Wise were more subtle behind the scenes kind of stuff. It is annoying though that one collector in America refused to let Carter and Pollard publish a letter they owned, which really nailed Wise for his crimes.

Whilst The Book Forger has an excellent prologue, I found its conclusion less inspiring. Hone tackles the very logical question of why Wise did what he did. However, the answer is rather obvious and is not much of a shock to the reader, as it has been signalled from early on: greed and social ambition. Yet Hone seems to treat this answer as something more original and surprising:

‘The book world had given him a home and a purpose, and he would do whatever it took not only to remain a part of that world but to climb to its pinnacle. When uncovering the thefts from the museum, Foxon called Wise’s sanity into question. “Clearly there are irrational motives at work,” he concluded. But there is another possibility. Might his actions be entirely in keeping with social anxieties of a man who does not belong? Wise was, in every sense of the word, a pretender to greatness. As the shark that stops swimming will sink and die, so Wise had to maintain the lie. The discoveries needed to keep coming.’

Hone mentions the alternative theory of bibliomania, but it seems like it is only introduced for the purpose of immediately knocking it down. However, one interesting aspect of this section was information on a bibliomania themed story:

‘In Flaubert’s earliest short story, written in 1836 at the age of fourteen, the protagonist is a reclusive bookseller, driven to murder by his lust for a precious incunable. It was based on the purportedly true story of a bibliomaniacal monk-turned-bookseller-turned-serial-killer, Don Vincente, recently captured and sentenced to death in Barcelona.’

I think for me the most interesting parts of The Book Forger were how Thomas James Wise was discovered and how he remained undetected for so long. I also think Pollard and Carter would be very good sleuthing protagonists for a mystery series set in the 1930s.

Rating: 4.25/5