Sister Helen. [ Thomas James Wise Forgery ] Rossetti, D.G. Wise, T.J.

Folded sheets, unbound, 8vo, (without wrappers in common with nearly all copies), 17 pp. An interesting forgery in a number of respects. The genuine poem first appeared in print in a periodical in 1853 and later, with substantial revisions, in 1870 and 1881. Wise had secured a scrap of the author's manuscript with lines which he intended to print in his creative forgery of a supposed 1857 edition: Forman saved him from what would have been a disastrous mistake by pointing out that these lines first appeared in the 1881 text. The forgers correspondence about this was in early 1890 but it seems the forged pamphlets were salted away for some time and dribbled out only slowly - no copy appeared at auction until June 1903. In the meantime, Wise had started preparing the ground for 'discovery' of copies of his fake 1857 edition by mentioning its existence (together with several other of his creations) in a May 1894 review of J.H. Slater's 'Early Editions of Some Popular Modern Authors'. He also at some point secured the signature of William Rossetti on one of his forgeries, having evidently convinced the late author's brother of its authenticity - Rossetti also included a brief mention of the '1857' printing in his bibliography of Dante Gabriel's works (in The Bibliographer, December 1902-January 1903). . Only in 1934, with the publication of Carter & Pollard's 'An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets', was the forgery exposed - they revealed that tests of the paper used for its printing showed it contained esparto grass,- as this had first been used in 1861, the supposed '1857' pamphlet was conclusively a forgery. {Todd 192f] Variable browning, inner margins of pp 10-11 darkened, otherwise Good in folded sheets, one bolt unopened. With a decorated leather folder.