Evening star., 1944-12-24
Raises Ne1V Questions
On First-Editi0n F0rgeries

ana Pollard nave you In q cleft stick
and that can give you no other
advice In the matter than this:
Unless you know yourself to be
innocent you have only two alter
natives, Cd silence, CD q confess
sion." And silence was Wise's only
answer. Miss Ratchford does not
give the source Of this letter, but
1t seems clear that 1t must have
come from Page himself through
the of1ces Of Carter and Pollard.
Not the least interesting part OF
the recent study Is the examina-
ton Of the voluminous and friendly
correspondence, numbering over q
thousand letters, that Wise carried
on with John Henry Wrenn over a
period Of nearly 20 years, ending
with Wrenn's death In 1911.
The Wrenn Library.
Wise advised Mr.. Wrenn concern
ing the formation of his collection
Of books which Is now at the Uni
versity Of Texas and frequently Sc
cured for him or offered to him
books that Wrenn desired to add to
his collection. In spite of the fact
that Wise frequently defrauded
Wrenn, Miss Ratchford acknowl-
edges frankly that without Wise's
knowledge and experience the ex-
ceptional Wrenn Library could not
have been built. We must there
fore give the devil his due.
From the point of view of the
many Wise forgeries which are now
found in the Wrenn Library, the
correspondence. only recently avail
able through Wise's death, is par
ticularly revealing in the clever pat
tern of sale used by Wise in dispos-
ing of the forgeries to Wrenn. Miss
Ratchford in editing this CORE
spondence, which in essence is a
dramatic monologue by Wise since
Wrenn's letters were destroyed, has
nicely indicated the sly way that
Wise had of interfering in his let
tiers few spurious titles among the
genuine dngeniously indicated in
the transcriptions of the letters and
in the text by the use of capital
letters. In all Mr.. Wrenn pur-
chased rs OF the forgeries, for which
he paid several thousand dollars;
all Of these titles are described In
an appendix for the interested
reader.
Shock to Literary World.
The only motives of T. j. Wise ir
foisting these forgeries on an un.
suspecting public are the obviou.
ones of money and prestige, both
of which somehow seems hard tt
justify in view Of the disastrous ef.
feet the ultimate disclosure of hin
as a forger was bound to produce
The literary and photographic worle
are still suffering from the shocl
that so eminent a man could have
been guilty of such an unforgivabls
crime. It is not without significance
and certain poetic justice thai
copies Of these fraudulent pam.
phlets are now sought as curiosities
and it is conceivable that their salt
prices as such will in some case.
equal If not surpass the origina
purchase prices.
Miss Ratchfords contribution t.
this absorbing and scandalous Incl.
dent is not the final chapter in tn.
examination of the forgeries o.
Wise and his possible partners il
the fraud, but her account is highl,
readable, interesting and illumi.
mating. 1t raises new question!
which will bear further investigat
ing. Certainly this book should ap.
peal to many types of readers othel
than librarians and collectors, for i
is as engrossing as many account
| of other more lurid crimes.