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#11
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A "literary scandals" collection?
Helium wrote:
Jon Meyers wrote: The recent stories about Kaavya Viswanathan's partially plagiarized .... got me to wondering about the possibilities for a collection based on books that erupted into literary scandals over plagiarism and/or authenticity. What else would you include? What about books that offended the moral and religious sensibilities of established elites e.g. books by Darwin, Copernicus, etc. as well as novels banned by the church e.g. Joyce's Ulysses, Cleland's Fannie Hill, etc. (the lists are endless), and so on. There seems to be many criteria for creating an interesting collection of books that caused scandals. regards, He2 I thought about those types of books, too, but I was really thinking specifically about controversies of authorship or authority (plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation) rather than books whose content offended on grounds of morality, religion, etc. --Jon Meyers |
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#12
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A "literary scandals" collection?
Kris Baker wrote:
"Jon Meyers" wrote... What else would you include? Clifford Irving's Howard Hughes biography. The difficulty there is that he never did get it published as a book; I think excerpts may have appeared in one or more magazines, but I could be misremembering. You'd have to get your hands on one of the copies of the manuscript, if any still exist, that Irving sent out to publishers. --Jon Meyers |
#13
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A "literary scandals" collection?
fvndoc wrote:
"Charles Edwards" wrote... One author not mentioned is Marvin Kitman, who has written extensively on George Washington. His books have been described as literary frauds, a fair statement considering their total lack of scholarship. In one of the books, "The Making of the President 1789," Kitman actually misspelled the word "President" in the title of the book! In another book, covering Washington's expense accounts for the Revolutionary War, Kitman attempts to prove that Washington was a thief who overcharged the public for his services; the truth is the exact opposite of what Kitman wrote. Mr Kitman, the former (or perhaps current although I doubt it) TV columnist for NY Newsday, is a humorist. Um, yup. And that "miffpelling" was intentional and readily decipherable by anyone with a paffing familiarity with pre-19th-Century documents, or juft a little knowledge of typographical hiftory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s http://tinyurl.com/lxs7z --Jon Meyers |
#14
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A "literary scandals" collection?
Jon Meyers wrote:
I was really thinking specifically about controversies of authorship or authority (plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation) rather than books whose content offended on grounds of morality, religion, etc. OK. There are quite a few in my area of specialism (17th century religious literature), but the one that really stands out is _Contemplations of the State of Man_ (1684 and four later editions), claimed by the editor, one Robert Harris, to be an original work by the Anglican divine Jeremy Taylor. In fact, it is an abridgement of Vivian Molyneux’s Catholic translation of a work by the Spanish Jesuit Juan Eusebio Nieremberg. Nieremberg's original work is entitled _De la Diferencia entre lo Temporal, y Eterno_ (Madrid, 1640). Molyneux's translation (_A Treatise of the Difference bbtwixt [sic] the Temporal and Eternal_) was published in London in 1672. Taylor, sometimes called "the Shakespeare of divines" for his pure prose style, had died five years previously, in 1667. The imposture (for which the editor, Robert Harris has to take the blame) was not exposed until 1848, when Edward Churton wrote _A letter to Joshua Watson...giving an account of a singular literary fraud practised on the memory of Bishop Jeremy Taylor_. However, the work is still routinely miscatalogued, as the COPAC entries show (http://tinyurl.com/zfeqy). John http://rarebooksinjapan.org |
#15
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A "literary scandals" collection?
The recent stories about Kaavya Viswanathan's partially plagiarized, and
possibly ghost-written, novel, _How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life_ , coming so closely after the controversy surrounding James Frey's _A Million Little Pieces_ , got me to wondering about the possibilities for a collection based on books that erupted into literary scandals over plagiarism and/or authenticity. Other relatively recent examples would be Stephen Ambrose's _The Wild Blue_ , Doris Kearns Goodwin's _The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys_ , and Joe McGinniss's _The Last Brother_ (which, ironically, borrows heavily from Goodwin's book). And looking much further back, you'd have to include Thomas Chatterton's Rowley poems. What else would you include? - The Hitler Diaries - the poems of Ern Malley - D.M. Thomas's "The White Hotel" - Jane Campion's "The Piano" (film and book both plagiarized from Jane Mander's "The Story of a New Zealand River" - I *think* Dava Sobel's "Longitude" is derivative from an earlier book but can't remember which - the writings of "Grey Owl" - the archaeological field reports on Piltdown - T.E. Lawrence's "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" ============== j-c ====== @ ====== purr . demon . co . uk ============== Jack Campin: 11 Third St, Newtongrange EH22 4PU, Scotland | tel 0131 660 4760 http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/ for CD-ROMs and free | fax 0870 0554 975 stuff: Scottish music, food intolerance, & Mac logic fonts | mob 07800 739 557 |
#16
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A "literary scandals" collection?
"Jon Meyers" wrote in message ... What else would you include? Plagiarists: Ward Churchill, who has the added cachet of being a fake indian; and Molly Ivins, although she has no cachet at all. |
#17
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A "literary scandals" collection?
On Thu, 04 May 2006 22:13:30 -0500, Jon Meyers
wrote: Helium wrote: Jon Meyers wrote: The recent stories about Kaavya Viswanathan's partially plagiarized .... got me to wondering about the possibilities for a collection based on books that erupted into literary scandals over plagiarism and/or authenticity. What else would you include? What about books that offended the moral and religious sensibilities of established elites e.g. books by Darwin, Copernicus, etc. as well as novels banned by the church e.g. Joyce's Ulysses, Cleland's Fannie Hill, etc. (the lists are endless), and so on. There seems to be many criteria for creating an interesting collection of books that caused scandals. regards, He2 I thought about those types of books, too, but I was really thinking specifically about controversies of authorship or authority (plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation) rather than books whose content offended on grounds of morality, religion, etc. --Jon Meyers What about historical revisionists- David Irving and the Holocaust for example? Would you include that as an example of literary scandal? I realize this could easily devolve into Flat Earth, Lemurian kookery, but kept at the upper levels of (what passes as) scholarly research and away from Art Bell-ian mouth-breather hysteria would you include this?. Dave |
#18
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A "literary scandals" collection?
Dave wrote:
On Thu, 04 May 2006 22:13:30 -0500, Jon Meyers wrote: Helium wrote: Jon Meyers wrote: The recent stories about Kaavya Viswanathan's partially plagiarized .... got me to wondering about the possibilities for a collection based on books that erupted into literary scandals over plagiarism and/or authenticity. What else would you include? What about books that offended the moral and religious sensibilities of established elites e.g. books by Darwin, Copernicus, etc. as well as novels banned by the church e.g. Joyce's Ulysses, Cleland's Fannie Hill, etc. (the lists are endless), and so on. There seems to be many criteria for creating an interesting collection of books that caused scandals. regards, He2 I thought about those types of books, too, but I was really thinking specifically about controversies of authorship or authority (plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation) rather than books whose content offended on grounds of morality, religion, etc. What about historical revisionists- David Irving and the Holocaust for example? Would you include that as an example of literary scandal? I realize this could easily devolve into Flat Earth, Lemurian kookery, but kept at the upper levels of (what passes as) scholarly research and away from Art Bell-ian mouth-breather hysteria would you include this?. I think I wouldn't include these books, because, although they may elide or misrepresent the known facts, and may be the work of total wackjobs, they are, mostly, the work of *sincere* wackjobs. These writers really believe their own nonsense, so there is, in their minds at least, no intent to deceive, no manufacture of fraudulent material being passed off as genuine. So, unless they stole their nutty idea, and the particular expression of it, from some other nut and presented it as their own, these authors, and their books, don't fit the category. --Jon Meyers |
#19
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A "literary scandals" collection?
Jack Campin - bogus address wrote:
- The Hitler Diaries Because they were fake. - the poems of Ern Malley Because it was a hoax, taking the mickey out of modern poetry. - D.M. Thomas's "The White Hotel" Because it is (partly) plagiarised. - Jane Campion's "The Piano" (film and book both plagiarized from Jane Mander's "The Story of a New Zealand River" - I *think* Dava Sobel's "Longitude" is derivative from an earlier book but can't remember which Some similarities to Fergat's _Last Theorem_, perhaps, but nothing "scandalous", surely? Not plagiarised or anything, I think? - the writings of "Grey Owl" Because the author was not who or what he purported to be. - the archaeological field reports on Piltdown Another hoax, but truly aimed at hoodwinking, rather than just taking the mickey. - T.E. Lawrence's "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" Not sure about this one; because the author didn't approve of it? An interesting list, but one which shows that there is tremendous range and diversity here. There seem to be three main categories: 1. Authors who plagiarise 2. Authors who write under a bogus identity 3. Authors who publish material that is false or intended to mislead These in turn have subcategories or fuzzy edges. 1. Plagiarism In some cultures, plagiarism is accepted, even seen as a kind of compliment to the original author. I frequently read feature articles here in Japan which do no more than trot out, without acknowledgement, the words and ideas of other writers. And there can be unconscious borrowing (I can't think of examples in literature offhand, but it's generally accepted that George Harrison simply didn't notice that the melody to "My Sweet Lord" was identical to that of "He's So Fine"). 2. Identity Identity can be very obvious to establish, but it can also be well-nigh impossible. Was Dickens, in writing _Oliver Twist_, a radical reformer, fearlessly promoting the interests of the underdog, or was he pandering to the popular prejudices of the time? Almost all the poor characters are bullies, thieves or cheats, Oliver is only of interest because he has blue blood, the first person who shows him any kindness is the gentleman whose handkerchief was stolen...and then there's Fagin, the stereotype Jew. Will the real Charles Dickens please step forward? 3. Material First, we'd have to make a difference between material which is intended to deceive (such as faked archaeological evidence) and material whose ultimate point lies in the exposure of the hoax (like the poems of Ern Malley). We also have the difficulty of whether the proponents of "whacky" ideas (nuclear fission, alien abductions) are intentionally deceiving others. The problem of authorial intent underlies all three categories to some extent, especially with our post-structuralist "death of the author" conceptions (the work is what the reader makes of it, not whatever its author may have intended it to be). BTW, as a further example of type 2, has anyone mentioned Rahila Khan? There's a good article on that one he http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/.../dalrymple.htm John http://rarebooksinjapan.org |
#20
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A "literary scandals" collection?
John R. Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:
BTW, as a further example of type 2, has anyone mentioned Rahila Khan? Uh, I did--he http://groups.google.com/group/rec.c...28d1935?hl=en& William M. Klimon http://www.gateofbliss.com |
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