ERN MALLEY HAD FOREBEARS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 270, 25 August 1944, Page 12

ERN MALLEY HAD FOREBEARS

Literary Hoaxes Are Not New

(Written for "The Listener" by

J.C.

R.

HE story printed in The Listener concerning the "Ern Malley" hoax, recently perpetrated by two young Australians, calls to mind the fact that literary hoaxes have a long and ancient history, and that they have been practised, not only by unscrupulous forgers, but by some of the most famous writers. In general, the hoaxes have been of two kinds — the production of works attributed to famous writers, and the creation of fictitious figures with works attributed to them, as in the "Ern Malley" case. In England, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were an open season for the literary hoaxer. At that time, a revival of interest in earlier literature predisposed people to accept without much question a great number of spurious writings. Shakespeare was a favourite subject. The first deliberate forgery was in 1728, when Lewis Theobald "discovered" a lost play of Shakespeare, "The Double Falsehood." This was performed at Drury Lane, and passed through two editions before being exposed. Even those critics who said it was not Shakespeare’s work, attributed it to one or other of his contemporaries.

Hoaxer at Eighteen But the most audacious Shakespearian forger was William Henry Ireland, the 18-year-old son of a bookseller. In 1795, Ireland "found" two of Shakespeare’s plays ‘"Vortigern and Rowena" and "Henry II.," of which the manuscripts, cleverly forged, were passed as genuine by a large committee of scholars. James Boswell is said to have gone on his knees to kiss the relics and Richard Brinsley Sheridan produced "Vortigern and Rowena" at Drury Lane with John Kemble in the leading role. Only one critic stood out in dis-belief-the great Edmund Malone, whose scholarly criticism was ignored until Ireland confessed the fake in 1805. The popularity of Sir Walter Scott led in his lifetime to the publication of many books attributed to him, especially on the Continent, where he was very widely read. The most successful of these was "Walladnor," by a German, Haring, produced in 1824 +as a wager and accepted by everyone as a translation from the original English. Scott was eventually forced to disclaim authorship in his introduction to The Betrothed. At least one well-known writer owes his rise to fame to a successful forgery. This was’ the American poet, James Whitcomb Riley, who published "Leonanie,"’ a poem which he claimed was written by Edgar Allan Poe. Critics everywhere proclaimed "Leonanie" as a Poe masterpiece. When Riley confessed authorship, it was some years before he was believed, but he had by then focused attention on his own writings. History gives many examples of the same kind-the forgeries by George Steevens, of Peele and Milton, the forgeries of poems by Byron and the

Shelley letters by "Icobad Byron," the Homer and Hesiod fakes of Constantine Simonides; the master-forger, and so on. The curious thing about them all is that in nearly every case the experts were all fooled — until the forger confessed or became over-confident. The Created Creator In the second class, the foisting of works on a mythical person, there are many famous examples. This is a device used for three main purposes (1) to gain fame by writers doubtful of their ability to succeed in their own right (2) to expose a cult or craze and show up the gullibility of. the critics, or (3) just to

have fun, Apart from the "Ossian" series by Macpherson, which sent Samuel Johnson on a trip to the Hebrides to expose their lack of Celtic origin, the most famous example of the first type is that of Thomas Chatterton, eighteenth-century youth, who invented the fifteenth-century monk, Thomas Rowley, and passed off a whole flock of manuscript poems in his name. He was successful until his plentiful production aroused suspicions, and Chatterton; exposed, committed suicide at the age of 17. He was, in fact, in his own right, an admirable poet, Not so well known are the exploits of Prosper Merimee, the author of Carmen. He created many fictitious writers, including "Clara Guzla," whose "Dramatic Works" he "edited" in 1825, with a circumstantial account of her life. In 1827, his purported translations from the Illyrian of "Hyacinthe Maglanovich"’ fooled Sir John Bowring, a famous Slav scholar, and also the Russian poet, Pushkin. Again, William Sharp _ confused biographers for a century by publishing both under his own name and that of "Fiona Macleod," for whom he supplied biographical data and even letters. To his death he pretended, against all evidence, that she was real, and some critics regard this as a case of dual personality. A Hoax in Nine Editions Possibly the outstanding case of author-invention in the 20th century was the best-selling "Diary of a Young Lady of Fashion, 1764-1865," which appeared in 1926, This gave an intimate picture of the life of the 18th century as seen by the young "Cleone Knox," and was accepted as quite genuine. Not until the book had sold nine editions was it revealed that the author was really Magdalene King-Hall, daughter of Admiral Sir George KingHall, who had written it in a few weeks with the aid of a reference library. Lord

Darling was amongst those who claimed that the "Diary" should rank with Pepys’ diary, as a record of its times. Among those hoaxes designed to end a cult or craze, one’ of the most happy was that of George Shepard Chappel, who tried to stop the deluge of romantic adventure tales which paved the Royal Road to Royalties for Richard Halliburton, Joan Lowell, Trader Horn and others. Putmans, the publishers, submitted to newspapers serious announcements of a "Dr. Traprocks" who, on a Polynesian voyage, discovered a new group of islands which he named Filberts because of the many filbert nuts he found there. In due course, "The Cruise of the Kawa" appeared. Although intended as a burlesque of the far-fetched travel books, and although containing doctored _ illustrations, it was accepted quite seriously. The National Geographic Society wrote inviting Dr. Traprocks to a conference, and about a dozen people applied to go on the next voyage. After the exposure by Chappel himself, few dared to write in the Trader Horn or Lowell vein again. "Prism" Verse-A new ‘Ism But the literary hoax to outdo all literary hoaxes, from which it seems evident the "Ern Malley" authors took (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) more than a hint of their idea, was "Spectre: A Book of Poetic Experiments," by "Anne Knish" and "Emanuel Morgan," published in 1916. Two well-known American poets, Arthur Darison Fiske and Witter Bynner being scornful of the Imagist and Vorticist trends, decided to embarrass the poetic faddists. For a fortnight they wrote frantically opus after opus until they had enough for 66 pages. Their publisher alone was taken into the secret. Preparing the way, Knish (Ficke) and Morgan (Bynner) wrote a panegyric "The Spectric School of Poetry," published in Forum, June, 1916. The poems were then published with a preface explaining the principles of the new school. Readers and

the critics were enthusiastic and amateurs hastened to join the spectrists, who held solemnly that the t e of a poem is to be regarded as "a prism, upon which the colourless white light of infinite existence falls, and is broken up into glowing, beautiful and intelligible hues,’ and that the "Spectrum" idea in its second sense "relates to the reflex vibrations of physical sense and suggests the luminous appearance which is seen after the exposure of the eye to intense light." "Anne Knish" and "Emanuel Morgan" were deluged with fan letters, and had to resort to all kinds of subterfuge to avoid personal appearances. Eventually, when a Pulitzer prize-winning poet wrote "Whereas the Imagists merely prick at the surface, you probe to the core,’ the two poets tossed dice to decide who should keep the priceless letter, and the winner had it certified as genuine by a notary public. Literary papers were flooded with Spectrist contributions and criticisms. One literary historian, Lloyd Morris, dismissed Ficke and Bynner in a few lines, but devoted pages to Knish and Morgan. The Psycho Boys .Had the Great War not intervened, the two poets were going to invite Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edgar Lee Masters and others to join the Spectrist. school. However, after Ficke went to France, Bynner exposed the whole hoax in a public lecture, Those who had sponsored the "school" were hard put to retire gracefully. Some kept discreetly silent. The most delightful attempt to save face came in an article by Arthur J. Eddy, called "Bynner, Ficke and Freud," which said "both Bynner and Ficke simple ‘broke loose’ in their burlesque, and for the first time in their lives abandoned their literary pose

under the cover of pseudonyms." This "explanation" perhaps better than anything Ficke and Bynner wrote, illustrates not only the colossal egotism of some of the modern "schools," and the almost complete absence of a sense of humour on the part of their adherents, but also C. E. M. Joad’s contention that "psycho-analytical" criticism means the abandonment of reason and common sense.