HANDBOOK OF FICTITIOUS NAMES.
Reading edition
HANDBOOK
OF
FICTITIOUS NAMES:
BEING A GUIDE TO AUTHORS, CHIEFLY IN THE LIGHTER LITERATURE OF THE XIXTH CENTURY, WHO HAVE WRITTEN UNDER ASSUMED NAMES; AND TO LITERARY FORGERS, IMPOSTORS, PLAGIARISTS, AND IMITATORS,
BY
OLPHAR HAMST, ESQ.,
AUTHOR OF “A NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF J.-M. QUÉRARD.”
“All the world’s a stage And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.” As You Like It.
“There is no vice doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.” Bacon.
LONDON: JOHN RUSSELL SMITH, 36, SOHO SQUARE. 1868.
LONDON: PRINTED BY S. AND J. BRAWN, 13, PRINCES STREET, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, HOLBORN, W.C.
TO THE MEMORY OF JOSEPH-MARIE QUÉRARD I DEDICATE THIS HUMBLE ATTEMPT AT EMULATING HIM.
A work on the literary impositions which have been perpetrated upon the public, besides being replete with interest, would be productive of considerable other advantage. It would furnish an important subject of study in the great science of human nature, exhibiting peculiar, cultivated specimens of criminality.
The secret history of the authorship of literary productions would strip many a name of the reputation it enjoys, and place laurels on the brow of many a man who
In life’s low vale remote has pined alone, Then dropped into the grave, unpitied and unknown!
Rank and wealth have obtained unmerited eminence in the literary world, at the expense of the time and abilities of gifted dependents.
David Fosdick, Biblical Repository, New York, 1838.
Literary swindling is a crime that is very prevalent, because we have no Government police to bring offenders to justice.
S. N. Elrington, Literary Piracies, &c. Dublin [1863] p. 18.