Announcements

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 26.017  Friday, 16 January 2015

From:        Joseph Egert <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

Date:         January 15, 2015 at 2:24:00 PM EST

Subject:    Authentic Forgeries! (Announcement)

For anyone passing near or through the Baltimore, MD area, Peabody Library is hosting through Feb 7 (not Feb 1) 2015,  an exhibition of 70 “Fakes, Lies, and Forgeries”:

http://releases.jhu.edu/2014/10/02/exhibit-explores-art-and-artifice-behind-historys-greatest-fabrications/

The ‘authentic’ forgeries include:

--- Ben Jonson manuscript verse letter to his “special goode Friende Sr Wm Davenant” at the “Swanne Taverne by Charinge Crosse”, probably an early 19^th C. forgery. Davenant was knighted five years after Jonson died.

--- William Henry Ireland’s ‘rediscovered’ Shakespearean play VORTIGERN presentation copy from 1799.

--- The 1796 broadside bill for the above VORTIGERN played only April 2, 1796 at the Drury-Lane Theatre Royal.

--- The same Ireland’s MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS AND LEGAL INSTRUMENTS UNDER THE HAND AND SEAL OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1796). Includes love letter and (?) “lock of hair” sent to his wife “Anne Hatherrewaye”.

--- The same Ireland’s ‘improved’ copy of John Camilton’s 1610 anti-Jesuit pamphlet containing forgeries of Shakespeare’s signature and of Shakespeare’s anti-Catholic notes.

Enjoy,

Joe Egert