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A Neglected Anniversary
Type: Journalistic Hoax. Summary: Text of an article detailing a false history of the bathtub. What follows is the complete text of Henry L. Mencken’s article “A Neglected Anniversary,” published in the New York Evening Mail on December 28, 1917. The article presents a false history of the bathtub. Details…
Blue Laws of Connecticut
Type: Fake History. Summary: An eighteenth-Century historian wrote about repressive “blue laws” supposedly once practiced in Connecticut. The term ‘Blue Laws’ describes harsh, puritanical laws that regulate public morality. Such laws supposedly existed in colonial America, making it illegal to do such things as kiss a child or shave on…
Eighteenth-Century Literary Hoaxes
Type: Literary Hoaxes. Summary: The eighteenth century is regarded as the great age of literary forgery. During the eighteenth century literary fakes poured forth from the pens of writers. A number of factors contributed to this. First, this was the period during which print culture became ascendant over oral culture.…
James Macpherson and the Ossianic Controversy
Type: Literary hoax. Summary: An eighteenth-century schoolmaster claimed to have found poems written by a third-century Scottish bard. The poems were actually written by the schoolmaster himself. James MacphersonIn 1760 a young Edinburgh schoolmaster named James Macpherson (1736-1796) published a translation of ancient Scottish verse titled Fragments of Ancient Poetry,…
Madagascar or Robert Drurys Journal
Type: Undetermined. Probably not a hoax. Summary: There has been continuing debate about whether a popular tale describing survival in eighteenth-century Madagascar was truth or fiction. Ask your average eighteenth-century Englishman about the faraway land of Madagascar, and all you’d get was a blank stare. For the English, Madagascar was…
Melancholy Reflections
Type: Exposé of a journalistic hoax. Summary: Text of an article in which H.L. Mencken admitted inventing a false history of the bathtub. What follows is the complete text of Henry L. Mencken’s article “Melancholy Reflections,” published in the Chicago Tribune on May 23, 1926. In the article, Mencken admits…
Modest Proposals
Type: Genre of satirical hoax. Summary: A form of satire that makes its point by shocking people with a socially taboo proposal. In 1729 Jonathan Swift published a short work titled A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents…
Thomas Chatterton
Type: Literary forgery. Summary: A young man in eighteenth-century England claimed to have found poetry by a fifteenth-century priest. The Death of Chatterton, Oil Painting by Henry Wallis, 1856As a young boy growing up in Bristol, Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) spent a great deal of time with his uncle, the sexton…
Trial of Polly Baker
Type: Literary Hoax. Summary: The story of a woman tried for giving birth to five children out of wedlock provoked widespread popular outrage during the eighteenth century. In 1747 the text of a speech delivered by a woman, Polly Baker, accused by British magistrates in a court in Colonial America…
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Articles in category "Arts -> Literature ":
There are 9 articles for this category
A Neglected Anniversary
Type: Journalistic Hoax. Summary: Text of an article detailing a false history of the bathtub. What follows is the complete text of Henry L. Mencken’s article “A Neglected Anniversary,” published in the New York Evening Mail on December 28, 1917. The article presents a false history of the bathtub. Details…
Blue Laws of Connecticut
Type: Fake History. Summary: An eighteenth-Century historian wrote about repressive “blue laws” supposedly once practiced in Connecticut. The term ‘Blue Laws’ describes harsh, puritanical laws that regulate public morality. Such laws supposedly existed in colonial America, making it illegal to do such things as kiss a child or shave on…
Eighteenth-Century Literary Hoaxes
Type: Literary Hoaxes. Summary: The eighteenth century is regarded as the great age of literary forgery. During the eighteenth century literary fakes poured forth from the pens of writers. A number of factors contributed to this. First, this was the period during which print culture became ascendant over oral culture.…
James Macpherson and the Ossianic Controversy
Type: Literary hoax. Summary: An eighteenth-century schoolmaster claimed to have found poems written by a third-century Scottish bard. The poems were actually written by the schoolmaster himself. James MacphersonIn 1760 a young Edinburgh schoolmaster named James Macpherson (1736-1796) published a translation of ancient Scottish verse titled Fragments of Ancient Poetry,…
Madagascar or Robert Drurys Journal
Type: Undetermined. Probably not a hoax. Summary: There has been continuing debate about whether a popular tale describing survival in eighteenth-century Madagascar was truth or fiction. Ask your average eighteenth-century Englishman about the faraway land of Madagascar, and all you’d get was a blank stare. For the English, Madagascar was…
Melancholy Reflections
Type: Exposé of a journalistic hoax. Summary: Text of an article in which H.L. Mencken admitted inventing a false history of the bathtub. What follows is the complete text of Henry L. Mencken’s article “Melancholy Reflections,” published in the Chicago Tribune on May 23, 1926. In the article, Mencken admits…
Modest Proposals
Type: Genre of satirical hoax. Summary: A form of satire that makes its point by shocking people with a socially taboo proposal. In 1729 Jonathan Swift published a short work titled A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents…
Thomas Chatterton
Type: Literary forgery. Summary: A young man in eighteenth-century England claimed to have found poetry by a fifteenth-century priest. The Death of Chatterton, Oil Painting by Henry Wallis, 1856As a young boy growing up in Bristol, Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) spent a great deal of time with his uncle, the sexton…
Trial of Polly Baker
Type: Literary Hoax. Summary: The story of a woman tried for giving birth to five children out of wedlock provoked widespread popular outrage during the eighteenth century. In 1747 the text of a speech delivered by a woman, Polly Baker, accused by British magistrates in a court in Colonial America…
