Fakers, Forgers and Phoneys by Magnus Magnusson

I came across this book and bought it and then forgot about it until finding it again recently. It is really well written and great fun. Magnusson (he of Iceland and Mastermind, the father of Sally; he died in 2007) looks at 16 main forgers or fakers, although he mentions several others en passant. He divides them into four types - art forgeries (Tom Keating, John Drewe and John Myatt, Han van Meegeren, the Cottingley fairies); archaeological frauds (Piltdown Man, Glozel, the Vinland Map, the Cardiff giant); impostors and hoaxers (the Tichborne claimant, Ellen and William Craft, the chess playing Turk automaton, George Psalmanazar); and literary forgeries (Thomas Chatterton, James Macpherson, Iolo Morgannwg, William Henry Ireland). Like all journalist he makes one or two mistakes (eg thinking Hammersmith is Hampstead at one point). Interestingly, although those who made money enjoyed it that was rarely the main reason for the fraud. Also, not all the frauds seem to have been that good but if people wanted to believe then they would. In most cases the suspicious could see right through the fraudster. The girls who claimed to see fairies seem to have still believed they had seen them even though they knew their photographs were faked.