The field of Americana is incredibly wide, spanning not only multiple centuries, but also the entire Western Hemisphere. For the rare book collector who wishes to specialize in Americana, this means that the first step is choosing an area of specialization (discussed in Part One). Then you can start building your collection around that focus. A meaningful, valuable collection of Americana often has multiple layers: primary sources, secondary sources, and bibliographical materials.
The term "Americana" can seem a nebulous one, especially to new rare book collectors. It encompasses much more than simply American history; experts often define Americana as any written items produced in the Western hemisphere from the time that Columbus and his contemporaries arrived in the Americas. So if the term "Americana" applies to books, manuscripts, and ephemera produced over the course of nearly six centuries, over multiple continents, where the heck should a collector begin?!?
William Henry Ireland forged Shakespeare, and the Russian secret police fabricated records from a secret society. Literary hoaxes can be entertaining, dangerous, or humiliating. Today is our final installment on famous literary hoaxes. (Be sure to check out Part One and Part Two.)
When The Education of Little Tree was published in 1976, it was an immediate success. The book was billed as the memoir of the orphaned author, who grew up with his Cherokee grandparents. It sold over nine million copies and made school reading lists across the country. The Education of Little Tree did receive some criticism from the Cherokee tribe for its inaccurate depiction of Cherokee language and tradition, but that did little to slow sales.
Back in 400 BCE, Dionysus the Renegade was a Stoic philosopher and student of Zeno of Citium. He wanted to humiliate his rival Heraclides and decided to forge a work of Sophocles. Dionysus inserted the acrostic "Heraclides is ignorant of letters," which quickly led to the discovery of Dionysus' fraud--but not before he'd achieved his aim of embarrassing Heraclides.
Headquartered in New York City's iconic Flatiron building, St. Martin's Press is one of the largest publishers of English-language books in the world. The publishing house puts out approximately 700 titles per year under multiple imprints.
Macmillen Publishers of UK founded St. Martin's in 1952, naming it for St. Martin's Lane in London. The house was privately owned until the late 1990's, when it was sold to Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC.
Now that was quite something. Well done, Robert Galbraith. Phenomenal debut novel with an interesting start...except Robert Galbraith isn't a new novelist, but rather the pseudonym of legendary author J.K. Rowling.
Since its inception in 1838, G.P. Putnam's Sons grown into one of the most respected--and controversial--publishing houses in the United States. In 1996, the publishing house became an imprint of the Penguin Group and continues to publish the works of outstanding authors of both fiction and non-fiction.
Charles Dickens began writing Great Expectations in 1860. According to his friend and biographer John Forster, Dickens indicated in a letter around October 12, 1860, that he intended the new novel to be "humorous and droll."*
Clearly the book took a different turn--including a final one after Dickens had already submitted the final chapters to the printer in June 1861. At the advice of a trusted friend, Dickens changed the ending to Great Expectations, a decision that has intrigued critics and collectors ever since.
One of the four largest English-language publishing houses, Simon & Schuster now publishes over 2,000 titles a year under 35 different imprints. The firm started by publishing crossword puzzle books and grew to publish some of the world's most recognized authors.
