Imitated Antiquities: The Forgeries of Harry Buxton Forman. Hannah Evans June 1 st, 2010 LIS 4070: Rare Books

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1 Imitated Antiquities: The Forgeries of Harry Buxton Forman Hannah Evans June 1 st, 2010 LIS 4070: Rare Books

2 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 1 Harry Buxton Forman was a prominent Victorian bibliographer and book collector during his lifetime. Known well in literary circles of the late 1800s, Forman was proven long after his death to have forged hundreds of works by the authors he cherished so fondly. Working alongside his partner, Thomas J. Wise, Forman s imposters were often unique in that they were completely fabricated editions rather than simply copies of existing works. The forgeries of Harry Buxton Forman beg the question of what makes a rare book valuable though his editions are fakes, standards for determining the value of a rare book such as limited existing copies and subject matter make these works of interest to the rare book world. Forman s individual works Forman, born in 1842, resided in London and gained marginal fame amongst literary enthusiasts as an editor of Percy Shelley and John Keats. Forman extensively researched and collected the works of both authors, buying manuscripts as well as their copyrights in order to publish his edited collections. Even before his work on forgeries was known to have begun, Forman put his knowledge of the book collecting community to good use John Collins notes in his extensive work on Forman and Wise, The Two Forgers (1992), that when Forman printed The Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne in 1878, he was

3 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 2 up to his usual tricks Not only was there an American issue printed from stereos, but also fifty copies on large paper, fifty copies on Whatman paper, two on pink paper, two on vellum, single copies on brown, yellow, blue green and mixed coloured papers; and four different settings of the title, one limited to six copies. (p. 54) As a recognized book enthusiastic himself, Forman couldn t resist taking advantage of the bibliophile s longing for unique and hard-to-find printings of collectable works. Collins also points out in the article Harry Buxton Forman and his Shelley Reprints (1974) that Forman was a fine editor; but he had an almost obsessive love of bibliographical complication for its own sake: also (and who shall blame him?) a careful appreciation of the monetary possibilities of his work (p. 515). Forman s desire to feed into the mind of the collector did not simply end there, however, and it continued to become manifested through even craftier and much more dishonest ways. Forman s work on forged materials is most commonly recognized through his partnership with Thomas J. Wise, but there is evidence to suggest that Forman imagined up his own brands of printed works before these two began their plot. In Harry Buxton Forman and William Morris (1972), Collins examines a few William Morris manuscript notes from the library of Buxton s son, Maurice Buxton Forman. It is observed that a number of these manuscript notes differ from their printed counterparts for example, the pamphlet Under the Elm-Tree has a manuscript note in Forman s handwriting that reads: Mr. Leatham issued this pretty little pamphlet without any wrapper. Having bought a small parcel of copies for myself and friends, I had 50 wrappers printed as

4 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 3 nearly in the style of the pamphlet as I could manage (p. 505). The printed note, however, vaguely describes the work as sold without a wrapper; but special copies are occasionally found with a pale green printed wrapper added (p. 505). Though not technically a lie, Forman conveniently conceals the fact that he was the printer of said wrappers. These somewhat unethical works mostly regarding political pamphlets have likely gained less attention than other forgeries because, as Collins explains, Forman seems to have failed to interest collectors, and his fabrications and their genuine brethren have never been much in demand in the antiquarian book trade (519). Similarly, Forman s printings of Shelley works in 1876, a decade before the forgeries committed with Wise are known to have begun, show interesting irregularities that point to his desire to use the practices of the antiquarian book trade to his advantage. In a note transcribed by Collins (1974), Buxton himself writes: The following is the Preface which I had meant to issue with the 1 st volume of the library edition of Shelley, together with the etching of W. B. Scott from Marianne Hunt s model. On a visit to Boscombe Manor, I found that Sir Percy & Lady Shelley greatly disliked the portrait; and on their urgent representations I withdrew the portrait, already printed off, & substituted the Armytage print from the Curran portrait. This change involved cancelling the preface and gave me an opportunity of enlarging it. The preface had not been printed off; and this copy is one of a very small number (perhaps 12 in all, on Whatman s & on ordinary paper) which I had pulled for my own use. (p. 509) In and of itself, this short anecdote describing the special circumstances surrounding this limited edition print seem innocuous, but noted with similar

5 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 4 examples that occur time and again, such as the previously described Keats letters printed in a variety of ways, it is clear that Forman not only took every opportunity possible to create limited run and unique prints, but he was also sure to document and make these irregularities known. Regarding Forman s research and documentation, this bibliographer renowned as a major authority on Shelley had no qualms about listing his own prints in his bibliographies as must-haves for collectors. There is no doubt that Forman s bibliography The Shelley Library is an impressive and well-researched work; Collins (1974) notes: H.B.F. also appreciated the advantages of bibliographical advertising. His The Shelley Library is certainly a fine achievement; yet about ten per cent of the items he describes are his own publications (p. 513). Using a technique later copied by Wise, Forman s bibliographies not only established him as an authority on their given subject matter, but also served as great marketing tools for his own printed efforts. These early prints suggest that Forman was perhaps the mastermind behind the better known forgeries committed in conjunction with Wise. Compared alongside the circumstances surrounding the Morris pamphlets, Collins observes: as precursors of [the forgeries committed with Wise], the Shelley prints have considerable interest; in my opinion they tend to support the suggestion that H.B.F. was the brains behind the plot, and Wise the messenger boy who later got above his station (p. 513). While Wise was initially accused as

6 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 5 being the one-and-only forger, evidence points to Forman s role not only as a partner, but also as the true intellectual behind the plot. Teaming up with Thomas J. Wise Forman and Wise began their dastardly partnership in 1887 with the printing of Poems and Sonnets, a collection of Shelley works. A year earlier, literary scholar Edward Dowden published a two-volume set on Shelley, which Poems and Sonnets was taken almost entirely from. This work of supposedly thirty copies was edited by the made-up Charles Alfred Seymour of the imagined Philadelphia Historical Society. Wise described this piece as a learned leg pull decades later in 1924, yet the scholarly work of Dowden was unattributed within this so-called extended gag. Over the next year, Forman and Wise created around a hundred forgeries, each containing such untruths as false publication dates, incorrect publication locales, fictional editors or fabricated publishers (Collins 1992). The most well known of Forman and Wise s concoctions is referred to as The Reading Sonnets, a false edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning s Sonnets from the Portuguese. This forgery is not only the work initially analyzed when the pamphlets in question were proven as fakes, but its subject matter is the most celebrated literary love story of Victorian England (Collins 1992 p. 105). This collection of poems chronicles the courtship of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, and the actual first edition was published in Forman and

7 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 6 Wise published a false edition marked with the date of 1947, and created a story surrounding its surfacing which described it as a very small and limited private run of the poems before their previously known release three years later. It was not until 1934, eighteen years after Forman s death, that John Carter and Graham Pollard s work An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets was printed, wherein the two book collectors looked into the Reading Sonnets and its authenticity along with a number of other pamphlets. First questioning the story surrounding the discovery of the supposed first edition of the Sonnets, Carter and Pollard tested the paper of the pamphlets in question as well as extensively researched their typography. They soon discovered that the suspect pamphlets were in fact printed on later paper than their dates suggested; it was noted that any paper containing esparto must have been made after 1861, and any printing paper containing chemical wood after 1874 (Carter p ). Also observed was a use of newer typefaces within many of the forged pamphlets works printed after the 1880s saw kernless type which was created as a result of fragile individual letters often breaking during use. A change in the appearance of these letters did not surface until this later period, yet a number of the pamphlets in question were printed in this manner. Carter and Pollard s methods proved forty-seven first editions as either false or suspect; many of these pamphlets and others not initially tested were proven to be forged beyond a shadow of a doubt by Nicholas Barker and John Carter in their 1983

8 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 7 follow-up work A Sequel to An Enquiry: The Forgeries of Buxton Forman and Wise Re-examined. Though Carter and Pollard never directly named a culprit after their extensive testing, they firmly believed that Wise was solely responsible for this and other forged texts but did not publicly out him mainly because of his stillprestigious reputation. The two researchers did confront Wise, however, who blamed the forgeries entirely on Forman and quickly decided to never discuss the works again. It was not until a correspondence between Buxton and Wise surfaced that Buxton was undeniably tied to the forgeries. Fletcher elaborates in the article The Proof that Forman Knew (1946): The crucial comment, however, is this. It is written by Wise between the lines of what comes after the semicolon in the next to last sentence by Forman [regarding a false number of copies printed]: Quite so. And we print Last Tournament in 1896, & want someone to think it was printed in 1871! The moral position is exactly the same! (p. 141) Forman plainly admits to lying about the year a work was printed, and shows no opposition to this fact. Fletcher further argues that the collections of Forman and Wise s letters paint Forman as intelligent and rather sharp while dealing with Wise, who is instead a very middle-class, imperfectly educated, imperceptive, smug, opportunist faux bonhomme, a well-to-do-business man with a flair for mysterious carryings-on and for both bibliographical detail and bibliographical hocus-pocus, yet at the same time with enough shrewdness, determination, and money to build for himself a very fine library of rare books. (p. 142)

9 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 8 Fletcher joins Collins in the assumption that Forman supplied the brains to the operation while Wise served as a lesser counterpart who was likely following the instructions and demands of his elder partner. The forgeries as rare books of interest The forgeries of Forman and Wise have gathered much interest: a number of articles have been published surrounding the circumstances of their partnership while Carter and Pollard s An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets as well as Barker and Collins A Sequel to An Enquiry: The Forgeries of Buxton Forman and Wise Re-examined investigate the two s works extensively. Collins later book, The Two Forgers, also dives deeply into the world of Forman and Wise, studying the two men behind the pamphlets themselves. All of this attention regarding the forgeries makes the actual pamphlets themselves objects of interest the story surrounding them is one that spans decades of mystery and research while Forman himself ensured that the actual works were rare objects (at least those in which the stated number printed was not fabricated, yet all of the works did have limited runs). According to antiquarian book dealer Bob Topp s handout, Determining the Value of Your Books, content is the number one criteria when evaluating works; the forgeries themselves are full of rich history. As noted by Andie Lloyd, rare books reference librarian at the British Library where many of the pamphlets now reside:

10 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 9 The forgeries themselves are extremely rare and as a result extremely sought after. In many cases the forgery is worth more than an original. They are also significant because they gave rise to the ground breaking bibliographic investigation techniques used by Carter and Pollard in their enquiry. The story surrounding Forman s forgeries, especially those created alongside Wise, is incredibly interesting, while the research and work of Carter and Pollard while testing the pamphlets is invaluable to those interested in antique books and other printed works. Topp also notes the edition as the second criteria for determining book value. While none of the forgeries are first editions of their actual content, they are the only printed editions of their imagined works. It is true that the forged pamphlets were really constructed almost entirely of the works of other authors, but the publication information and, in some cases, the forwards, introductions or other notes on the text supplied by Buxton or Wise were creations of their own. These forged editions prove to be very unique, though not as the true first editions of their contained works that Forman and Wise frequently tried to pass them off as. Forgeries are not out-of-the ordinary or even uncommon occurrences in the book world, yet Forman and Wise s works are special cases that contain much more than a simple lie constructed in order for the seller to gain more money. Though this may be true initially, the works of these two forgers are significant for a number of reasons first, in the fact that they attempted to create entire runs of a work rather than simply pirating existing editions; second, that

11 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 10 Forman and Wise were confident enough to alter the known story revolving around one of British literature s greatest tales; and finally, that their many false pamphlets inspired truly significant and groundbreaking methods of examining older printed works. It is no wonder that a forged edition under these circumstances can become more sought-after than a true edition of a literary work considering its impact on the book collecting community. Much remains unknown regarding the forgeries of Forman and Wise as well as the individual works of both men. Collins (1974) asserts that Harry Buxton Forman is a curiously interesting but elusive personality: the more one knows about him, it seems, the less one comprehends of him (p. 506). As this story has continued to unfold beyond a century of study, it is likely that there is still more to be discovered regarding this elusive man and his contributions, both good and bad, to the literary and the book collecting communities.

12 IMITATED ANTIQUITIES: THE FORGERIES OF HARRY BUXTON FORMAN 11 References Barker, N. and Collins, J. (1983). A sequel to an enquiry into the nature of certain nineteenth century pamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard. London: Scholar Press. Berger, S. E. (1993, Spring). Books, bibliographies and forgeries: A review essay. Libraries and Culture, 28(2), Carter, J. and Pollard, G. (1983). An enquiry into the nature of certain nineteenth century pamphlets J. Carter and G. Pollard (Eds.) (2 nd ed.). London: Scolar Press. (Original work published 1934). Collins, J. (1972, Winter). Harry Buxton Forman and William Morris: A Preliminary enquiry. The Book Collector, 21, Collins, J. (1974, Winter). Harry Buxton Forman and his Shelley reprints. The Book Collector, 23, Collins, J. (1992). The two forgers: A biography of Harry Buxton Forman & Thomas James Wise. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Books. Fletcher, E. G. (1946, Fall). Proof that Forman knew. The Library Chronicle of the University of Texas, 2, Forman, H. B. and Wise, T. J. (1945). Between the lines: Letters and memoranda interchanged by H. Buxton Forman and Thomas J. Wise. Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press. Gallup, D. (1984). The Carter and Pollard enquiry fifiy years after. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 78(4), Topp, B. Determining the value of your books. Handout. Denver, CO: Hermitage Bookshop.

The New York Public Library Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature

The New York Public Library Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature Guide to the 1816-1948 [bulk 1816-1924] Berg Coll MSS Keats Processed by Staff. Summary Creator: Keats,