Based on a large body of diverse source material, this study offers an interdisciplinary account of literary and criminal forgery as they were practised, constructed and theorized in the 18th century alongside currency in all its forms.

It is suggested that the two kinds of forgery have unexpected connections with each other through the economy of literature which, following the development of copyright, regarded the signature of authorship as the legal site of literary authenticity, and through the economic and legal culture of forgery prosecutions, in which bogus "writing" came to signify a whole range of problems of personal and literary character. The study is based on a very large body of diverse material, from major texts such as "The Dunciad" and "Lives of the English Poets" to hundreds of minor poems, controversial pamphlets, criminal biographies, newspapers, legal records and manuscripts.

Short titles
introduction
an age of forgery
scripts and scripture
Ward, Crook and company
"man's first disobedience" -Lauder, Johnson and literary crime
Johnson, Ossian and the highland tour
the many lives of Doctor Dodd
"all of the house of forgery" - Chatterton, Walpole and antiquarian commerce
epilogue - the hand and seal of William Shakespeare
appendix.