EXTRAORDINARY LITERARY FORGERIES.
Some letters purporting to have been written by Shelley, and published by Mr. Moxon, turn out, with one or two exceptions, to be forgeries. It is proper to say at once that Mr. Moxon has been deceived, and that no gentleman, from the moment of the discovery, could have acted more straightforwardly and promptly than lie has done in this transaction. As soon as lie was convinced that he had been the means— the innocent means—of giving to the public a false article, he did his'best'to repair his mistake. He has suppressed the book, and has called in the copies delivered to the trade. The discovery was made in quite an accidental manner. Mr. Moxon had sent a copy of the book to Mr. Tennyson. During a visit which Mr. Palgrave was paying to Mr. Tennyson, he dipped into the Shelley volume, and lighted on a letter written from Florence to Godwin, the better half of which he at once recognised as part of an article on Florence, written for the Quarterly Review, so far back as 1840, by his father, Sir Francis Palgrave. He lost no time in communicating his curious discovery to his father ; and Sir Francis, after comparing the printed letter with the printed article, wrote at once to Mr. Moxon, informing him that the letter was a " crib" from an article which he had -written for the Quarterly Revieiv. Startled at such intelligence, Mr. Moxon replied that he had bought the letter at a public sale among other letters also by Shelley, and that the passage of which Sir Francis claimed the authorship was contained in a letter written by Shelley, carrying upon it the post mark of the period and other written signs which apparently marked it to be genuine. The Deputy Keeper of the Public Eecords, was, it may be readily imagined, equally startled with Mr. Moxon at the announcement of such a fact. He wanted to see the letter. The letter was produced—"lt looks genuine"—" is it not genuine ?" "I am the author of that passage, but not the writer of that letter," was the reply of Sir Francis. " But may not Sir Francis," it was urged to Mr. Moxon, " have seen this letter in the noble collection of autographs belonging to his father-in-law, Mr. Dawson Turner ?"—a question which only added a fresh difficulty to the solution sought. In this emergency, Mr. Moxon had recourse to the assistance of a gentleman known to be conversant with autographs. The letters were placed in his hands, with a request that he would spare no pains to ascertain the truth about them—and with this information to guide him—that they had been shown to some Post Office clerks at the General Post Office, who, " to the best of their belief," pronounced them to be genuine. The first step taken after this was, to compare the post-marks with Byron's letters to Mr. Murray posted from the same cities in the same month and year, and to the same city—London. Here they failed—and in this way. Where " Ravenna" on a genuine letter was in a small sharp type—in the Shelley letter it was in a large uncertain type—and in the letters from Venice the post-mark of the city of Palaces was stamped in an Italic, and not as in the Shelley specimens in a Roman letter; these were strong facts—but then the dates agreed with Shelley's sojourn at the several places— the seals were correct. The hand-writing was marvellously Shelley like ; no hesitation about it—a free accustomed hand. "Are they not genuine ?" From whom did Mr. Moxon buy these letters ? They were bought at Sotheby and Wilkinson's, at large prices. From whom did Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson receive them for sale? "We had them from Mr. White, the bookseller in Pall Mall over against the Reform Club.1' Off runs the gentleman-detective. " From whom did you, Mr. White, obtain these letters ?" —"• I bought them of two women—l
believed them to be genuine, and I paid large prices For them in that belief." Such are the words supposed to have been spoken by Mr. White. The two women would appear to have been like the man in a clergyman's band, but with a lawyer's gown, who brought Pope's letters to Curll. It would be impolitic at this stage of an important inquiry to publish the whole of the particulars placed at our service in elucidation of the forgery of these letters. It is proper, however, to say thus early that there has been, of late years, as we are assured, a most systematic and wholesale forgery of letters, purporting to be written by Byron, Shelley, and Keats—that these forgeries'carry upon them such marks of genuineness as have deceived the entire body of London collectors —that they are executed with a skill to which the forgeries of Chatterton and Ireland can lay no claim— that they have been sold at public auctions, and by the a hands of booksellers, to collectors of experience and rank —and that the imposition has extended to a large collection of books bearing not only the signature of Lord Byron, but notes by him in many of their pages—the matter of the letters being selected with a thorough knowledge of Byron's life and feelings, and the whole of the books chosen with the minutest knowledge of his tastes and peculiarities. But the marvel of the forgery is not yet told. At the same sale at which Mr. Moxon bought the Shelley letters were catalogued for sale a series of (unpublished) letters from Shelley to his wife, revealing the innermost secrets of his heart, and containing facts^ not wholly dishonourable facts to a father's memory, but such as a son would wish to conceal. These letters were bought in by the son of Shelley, the present Sir Percy Shelley—and are now proved, we are told, to be forgeries. To impose on the credulity of a collector is a minor offence compared with the crime of forging evidence against the dead, and still minor as in one instance against the fidelity of a woman. It is our practice to report the principal autograph sales, and to offer, when opportunity occurs, extracts from letters and documents of historical or biographical importance. Now, some of the documents and letters to which we have called attention have since, through our publicity, undergone the severe trial of Sir Frederick Maddens critical judgment, and have found a fitting place on the shelves of the British Museum. We have, however, we fear, given additional publicity to some of these undoubted Shelley and Byron forgeries ; and our readers will find extracts of letters from Shelley to Byron and from Byron to Shelley (the former especially), the presumed originals of which we have now no doubt were forgeries. Shelley's letter containing an assertion against the fidelity of "Harriet," -which sold for £6 6s.—and which excited even then our indignant protest, although we had no reason to doubt its genuineness—was of this sort. The forgery of Chatterton injured no one but an imaginary priest,—the forgery of Ireland made a great poet seem to write worse than Settle could have written, —but this forgery blackens the character of a great man, and, worse still, traduces female virtue. Mr. Moxon is not the only publisher taken in. Mr. Murray has been a heavy sufferer, though not to the same extent. Mr. Moxon has printed his Shelley purchases ;—Mr. Murray—wise through Mr. Moxon's example— will not publish his Byron acquisitions.— Athenaeum.
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Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 4 September 1852, Page 8
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1,254EXTRAORDINARY LITERARY FORGERIES. Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 4 September 1852, Page 8
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