Whilst defining the very meaning of forgery, Nick Groom ranges from the economic forgery of the 18th century, where the forgery of a #100 banknote could mean death by hanging, to the formation of literary copyright which was established not in order to protect the nation's authors, but rather as a way of censoring them. At the centre of Groom's book are the figures of literary forgery that have haunted both our literature and our imaginations for years. There is Chatterton: the fatal model for the Romantic perceived as a mad, unrecognized, and suicidal genius but one whose supposedly tragic life was as much myth as the 15th century monk he invented. Or there is Macpherson: constantly at war with Samuel Johnson who edited (or wrote, or indeed forged) the lost epics of a third-century Celtic bard; there is the forger William Henry Ireland who not only wrote two new and disastrous Shakespeare plays but also forged a legal document to make sure he benefited from the royalties; and finally there is the famous Wainewright who was a supreme forger in practically every sphere whose effect on literature from Dickens to Wilde to the early 21st century cannot be underestimated.