[Rarebooks] FS: 1887 Fake Bio of George Washington w/Tuxedo Connection

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

"Memorials of Washington and of Mary, His Mother, and Martha, His Wife,
from Letters and Papers of Robert Cary and James Sharples"

By James Walter.

Published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons: 1887.

A fascinating book that is not all that it seems at first glance. John
Lovari (writing in Karpel's “Arts in America” bibliography) notes that
this is- “apparently an interesting and valuable account of Sharples’s
connection with the Washington family, with comments on Robert Fulton and
his friendship with Sharples and on the two men as artists and
scientists."

Well, all well and good then. No, not really. Lovari continues-

"Although this is a seemingly plausible and valid description of the book
after a first reading of it, the work, an abridged version of which had
appeared in 1886 under the title ‘History and Descriptive Details of
Middleton’s Portraits of Mary, the Mother of Washington’, ranks with
Clifford Irving’s recent ‘biography’ of Howard Hughes as one of the major
hoaxes of the publishing world. Walter was attacked on twelve point of
plagiarism, forgery, and fabrication of evidence by the members of the
Massachusetts Historical Society”.

Well, now.

Hardcover. 6.5”x10”, xii + 362 pages, plus 12 black & white plates;
erratum slip; publisher’s green cloth with black decorations and
Washington’s coat of arms stamped in gilt; slight wear, but overall a very
nice, crisp, clean copy.

This book has the small printed book ticket of the noted American book
collector Grenville Kane, the bulk of whose Americana and Incunabula
collections are now at Princeton. In addition to being an important book
collector, Kane was also a founding member of the Tuxedo Club, a group of
wealthy New Yorkers who summered together at Tuxedo Park in upstate New
York; the group was responsible for introducing to American Society the
new-fangled semi-formal dinner jacket worn at a dinner by the Prince of
Wales, and naming it the... yes, that’s right.  $245.00

The covers =>

<http://www.joslinhall.com/images08/th-08601-cover.jpg>

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