Joseph Hone on The Book Forger

Sponsored by the Caxton Club.

Let us clue you in.

Composer Jerome Kern of Showboat and “The Way You Look Tonight” fame was an amazing book collector. And kern is going to figure prominently into the remarkable story you’ll be hearing … but it will be kern not Kern, for the composer in this tale was no musician.

Instead he was every bit a Wise man who conducted a daring swindle that caught eager bibliophiles in a net of fraud and deceit … bibliophiles who included a prominent Caxtonian. Here’s a tantalizing hint: there’s a Ransom note that says Wise materials are being held in Austin, Texas. Talk about footprints — some fourteen feet are involved! Someone did a lot of boxing.

Another scrap of a clue about the forgery: a sonnet is on it.

More riddles than solutions. What we need is a clever Englishman to play Sherlock to our Watson. Ah! We’ve got one: Joseph Hone.

Dr. Hone is a reader in literature and book history at Newcastle University. With degrees from Oxford and Exeter he is much published. The Book Forger is his fourth bofok — and it’s the genuine article.

It’s elementary. If you enjoy true crime stories in which the only red is the blushing of all those who were taken in, and if your appetite was whetted by Tom Danneberg’s terrific review of the The Book Forger in the March/April Caxtonian, then you’ll want to forge ahead and register for this program today!

For more information and to register: https://caxtonclub.org/event-6138829/Registration