The Poet and the Murderer: A True Story of Literary Crime and the Art of Forgery / Simon Worrall / 2002
Sometime in fall of 2019, I became fascinated with the story of Mark Hofmann, a Mormon forger and murderer whose work blurred the line between truth and fiction, between history and fantasy. The story of Mark Hofmann should be a key part of any Mormon or historian’s education. Briefly, the story goes like this: a young bibliophile and rare books dealer forges dozens of historical documents, fooling both historians and the leadership of the LDS church. In his forgeries, he provided “evidence” that Joseph Smith dabbled in folk magic (which is ultimately true) and necromancy (which is true if you consider baptisms for the dead necromancy, but not true any other way). His strategy was to sell these embarrassing “historical” documents to the church for large sums of money (tens of thousands of dollars) so they may suppress them, then leak their contents to the press to embarrass the church. Hofmann ultimately forged the handwriting of 129 different historical characters, including Martin Harris, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and others!
Hofmann, however, bit off more than he could chew. He churned out so many rare, impossible documents he was bound to get caught eventually. His problem is that he kept going for more and more ambitious forgeries. As the scrutinizing eyes of his debt collectors and manuscript dealers began to close in on him, he went on a bombing spree that resulted in the deaths of two people. He eventually confessed to his forgeries, although scholars and the public alike are suspicious. Can we trust a pathological liar to tell us about all his forgeries? What if he’s lying about how much he forged to brag and bolster his legend? Hofmann sold both legitimate and illegitimate documents, so just because Hofmann touched an artifact doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a counterfeit. My heart breaks for all the poor historians whose work got mangled by his crimes.
For those interested in learning more about Hofmann and his crimes, The Poet and the Murderer by Simon Worrall might be a good place to start.
Be warned, Worrall is not an excellent writer. Sometimes, he mangles his sentences. Other times, he revels in inappropriate allusions and similes, both of which are connected to other blind spots in his work. Check out this bizarre comparison, for example: “Among some African tribes boys are separated from their mothers at the age of fourteen and sent into the bush, where they learn to become warriors. Similarly, young Mormon men are taken from their families and sent out into the world to become warriors for God”. Not only are these two rites of passage extremely dissimilar, Worrall’s depiction of a generic African tribal society reduces a culturally specific practice to a stereotype.
Worrall’s treatment of Mormon history is thorough, but dismally biased. This particular comparison Worrall utilized will show you what I mean: “These local community organizations are the eyes and ears of the Church, funneling reports of disobedience and dissent up through the system in much the same way that local party officials in Communist China keep tabs on local neighborhoods.” This claim is made too flippantly and does little to reveal the true nature of church organization. Instead, it relies on the reader’s xenophobia and fear of communism to villainize the church. At another point, Worrall writes, “Mormons also learns from a young age to recognize each other by means of a series of signs and symbols known only to them.” This line made me laugh out loud. As someone raised Mormon, I was surprised to hear so.
Unfortunately, like many books in the true crime genre, Worrall also ultimately romanticizes Hofmann, and once again, Worrall’s similes provide a few clear examples. When describing Hofmann’s forays into hypnosis, Worrall writes, “like a Zen master, Hofmann would eventually gain almost total control of his mind and emotions. It was these extraordinary psychic powers that enabled him to control and manipulate others.” Comparing a sociopath to a Zen master is simply inappropriate. Moves like this happen throughout the text.
Where the book succeeds and what makes it worthwhile is its contextualizing of Hofmann’s work within a tradition of Mormon forgery. Once I learned of Hofmann’s story, I was struck with its parallels to Joseph Smith’s life. Early church leaders, including Joseph Smith, forged money or worked closely with Mormon forgers like David McKenzie and Peter Haws. Worrall succeeds in showing how Hofmann is a particularly Mormon villain who in some ways is just like Joseph Smith—that is, a brilliant, charismatic con man who knew how to make people believe what he was saying. Ultimately, I found The Poet and the Murderer satisfying because it did a great job highlighting this tradition and Hofmann’s parallels with Joseph.
Worrall also provides snappy narration about aspects of Emily Dickinson’s life, the story of the poor librarian who fundraised 24k to unwittingly purchase Hofmann’s forgery of a Dickinson poem, and the larger history of forgery in general. The text is sprawling and a reader will definitely feel bumps in the road between chapters, as Worrall awkwardly dances between Hofmann’s story and Dickinson’s. That said, it was an enjoyable enough read.
I recommend this book for anyone interested in forgery or Mormon history.