The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Verse, Violence and the Art of Forgery
Описание книги
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.
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Simon Worrall. The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Verse, Violence and the Art of Forgery
Dedication
Contents
Introduction
PROLOGUE The Poet and the Murderer
CHAPTER ONE Emily Dickinson for Sale
CHAPTER TWO A Riddle in a Locked Box
CHAPTER THREE A Search for Truth
CHAPTER FOUR Auction Artifice
CHAPTER FIVE In the Land of Urim and Thummim
CHAPTER SIX The Forger and His Mark
CHAPTER SEVEN The Magic Man
CHAPTER EIGHT The Art of Forgery
CHAPTER NINE The Salamander Letter
CHAPTER TEN Isochrony
CHAPTER ELEVEN The Myth of Amherst
CHAPTER TWELVE The Oath of a Freeman
CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Dirty, Nasty, Filthy Affair
CHAPTER FOURTEEN The Kill Radius
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Cracked Ink
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Victims
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN A Spider in an Ocean of Air
EPILOGUE Homestead
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
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The Poet AND THE Murderer
A True Story of Verse, Violence
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All the Boys would come –
Orpheu’s Sermon captivated –
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