The Greatest Shakespeare Hoax

William-Henry Ireland committed a scheme so grand that he fooled even himself into believing he was William Shakespeare's true literary heir.

The Smithsonian has more...

Much later, William-Henry would say he had been astonished by the brouhaha the “discovery” caused. What had started as a ploy to win the respect of his chilly, Shakespeare-worshiping father grew quickly into one of the most audacious literary hoaxes in history. In a burst of manic energy in 1795, the young law clerk produced a torrent of Shakespearean fabrications: letters, poetry, drawings and, most daring of all, a play longer than most of the Bard’s known works. The forgeries were hastily done and forensically implausible, but most of the people who inspected them were blind to their flaws. Francis Webb, secretary of the College of Heralds—an organization known for its expertise in old documents—declared that the newly discovered play was obviously the work of William Shakespeare. “It either comes from his pen,” he wrote, “or from Heaven.”

William-Henry Ireland was an unlikely Shakespeare. He dreamed of being an actor, a poet or perhaps a playwright, but he had been a dismal student, rarely applying himself to his lessons and regularly caned for misbehavior. One of his headmasters, he later recalled, told his father “that I was so stupid as to be a disgrace to his school.”