The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Verse, Violence and the Art of Forgery

by SimonWorrall (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.25

  The true story of a brilliantly forged Emily Dickinson poem sold at Sotheby's in 1997. The author's detective work led him across America, to a prison cell in Salt Lake City, where the world's greatest literary forger, Mark Hofmann, is serving a life sentence for double-murder. Mark Hoffman is no ordinary murderer. Until he was incarcerated he was the world's greatest literary forger: a man who combined meticulous historical research with craftsmanship and forensic science. In 1997, one of his most accomplished forgeries, a poem by the much-loved 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, turned up at a Sotheby's and was sold for $21,000 to the library in Dickinson's home town, Amherst. The find was the equivalent of unearthing a Shakespeare sonnet. However, Daniel Lombardo, the curator at the library in Amherst who had raised the money for the poem, was plagued by doubts. He had learned of a possible link between the poem and the notorious Mark Hoffman. Appalled at the prospect of having let down his home town, Lombardo was drawn into an investigation which, to his horror, revealed the extent of Hoffman's genius. Simon Worrall stumbled across the story and resolved to find out more about the fake's trajectory across America. He delves into Hoffman's Mormon background, his self-hypnosis , his unparalleled skill at replicating the exact circumstances of a document's manufacture. He explores the history of literary forgery from the Ptolemaic Egyptians to the present day; he uncovers the cunning behind Hoffman's car-bomb murders; he is drawn into a labyrinth of secretive deals and mysterious middlemen. In this literary mystery thriller Worrall deals with the secretive world of the Mormon church, the historical documents business, the science of forensic testing and the glamour of the auction houses. He also brings the characters alive: Emily Dickinson herself in 1871 - the year the poem was purportedly written; Lombado and his journey from innocence to experience; the Dickinson expert Ralph Franklin who had originally informed Sotheby's that the poem was authentic. Above all, this is the definitive account of the Rembrandt of literary forgery , one of the most chillingly compelling criminals the world has ever seen.

• New

  Paperback
  2009

  $13.16

  The true story of a brilliantly forged Emily Dickinson poem sold at Sotheby's in 1997. The author's detective work led him across America to a prison cell in Salt Lake City, where the world's greatest literary forger, Mark Hofmann, is serving a life sentence for double-murder.

  When the author sets out on the trail of a forged Emily Dickinson poem that has mysteriously turned up for sale at Sotheby's in New York, he finds himself drawn into a world of deception and murder. The trail eventually leads, via the casinos of Las Vegas, to Utah and the darkly compelling world of Mark Hofmann, ex-Mormon and one of the most daring literary forgers and remorseless murderers of all time. As the author uncovers Hofmann's brilliant, and disturbing, career, he takes the reader into the secret world of the Mormon Church and its controversial founder, Joseph Smith.

  Deeply researched but with the narrative pace of a novel, Worrall's investigation into the life and crimes of this charismatic genius is a real-life detective story you simply won't be able to put down. On the way, you will meet an eclectic cast of characters: undercover detectives and rare book dealers, Dickinson scholars, forensic document experts, hypnotists, gun-dealers and Mormons.

  As the story reaches its gripping climax, Hofmann becomes trapped in the web of his own deceptions ... and turns to murder.