Fakers, Forgers & Phoneys: Famous Scams and Scamps

Masterfully exploring the shadowy world of deception and counterfeiting, this intriguing collection gathers 16 case studies. True tales include a mystery man known by the unlikely name of George Psalmanazar who fooled the London literary world in 1704 with lurid accounts of cannibalism and polygamy in his native island of Formosa, Taiwan; the fabricated "missing link" human skull which was discovered in a gravel pit in 1912; and how an obese cockney adventurer in Australia succeeded in passing himself off as a slim young English aristocrat who had disappeared more than 10 years earlier in 1854. More recent scams unveiled are a house-painter-cum-art-restorer who fooled the art world and became a national TV celebrity in 1979, and a suave London conman who inveigled a struggling artist to become involved in the greatest British art scam of the 20th century.