biography
| name: |
Ireland, William Henry
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1777–1835)
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| biography:
| Forger of Shakespeare manuscripts, born in London, UK. He was articled to a London conveyancer where he had access to Elizabethan parchment and legal documents. Impressed with the story of Chatterton, he forged deeds and signatures of or relating to Shakespeare, and gradually more and more documents which his father eventually put on display. Many men of letters and experts believed in what they saw, but the material was denounced as a forgery by specialists such as Malone. Ireland then ‘found’ a new historical play entitled Vortigern and Rowena, which was produced by Sheridan at Drury Lane in 1796 with Kemble in the cast, but damned at once. His father finally began to suspect, and Ireland confessed in a public statement (1796) which he later expanded into his Confessions (1805). Employed by publishers in London, he sold imitations of his forgeries, and published ballads, narrative poems, romances, and other works of some literary merit. |
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