Author Unknown: On The Trail Of Anonymous (Signed)

Don Foster

ISBN 10: 0805063579 / ISBN 13: 9780805063578

Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2000

About this Item

Stated First Edition (also with Number Line to 1). Signed and inscribed by the author on the title page. This book is in excellent condition. Take a look at the photographs. The covers are spotless. They have little to no wear (slight wrinkling at the spine ends). The book is square, tight, and very solidly bound. The pages are exceptionally clean. I didn't see any soiling. No dogeared corners. No markings or attachments. The Dust Jacket is in excellent condition. It has a few very minor imperfections, a slight scuffing at the top of the middle edge and a light horizontal crease near the top edge of the rear cover. The jacket is NOT price-clipped. The flaps look great. The dust jacket will be fitted with a protective cover. Don Foster is a Professor of English literature at Vassar College. He has assisted with dozens of criminal investigations involving anonymous or pseudonymous writings, including the Unabom case, the "Army of God" bombings, and the Jon-Benet Ramsey homicide investigation'. 'Foster has invented an entire field of investigation: literary forensics. He solved a puzzle in Shakespeare's sonnets that had stumped scholars for centuries. He stumbled onto another literary mystery, a funeral poem written for a 1612 murder victim and was able to establish that the poet 'W.S.' was William Shakespeare. Just days later, he was invited to try to crack the case that at the time was a national obsession: who was the anonymous author of Primary Colors? In less than a week, Foster unmasked Joe Klein'. Seller Inventory # 001157

Bibliographic Details

Title: Author Unknown: On The Trail Of Anonymous (...

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York

Publication Date: 2000

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine

Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

From the professor who invented literary forensics--and fingered Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors--comes the inside story of how he solves his most challenging cases

Don Foster is the world's first literary detective. Realizing that everyone's use of language is as distinctive as his or her DNA, Foster developed a revolutionary methodology for identifying the writer behind almost any anonymous document. Now, in this enthralling book, he explains his techniques and invites readers to sit by his side as he searches a mysterious text for the clues that whisper the author's name.
Foster's unique skills first came to light when a front-page New York Times article announced his discovery that a previously unattributed poem was written by Shakespeare. A few weeks later, Foster solved the mystery that had obsessed America for months when he identified Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors. Foster also took on a case involving the elusive Thomas Pynchon. And his contributions to the Unabomber and JonBenet Ramsey cases have led the FBI and several police forces to hire him to train their organizations.
Introducing a fascinating new field of forensics, Author Unknown will appeal to mystery fans-and to everyone interested in words and the writer's craft.

Review:

This fascinating book describes how an English professor became a detective, sort of. Don Foster still teaches literature at Vassar College, but he's recognized as an expert in attributional theory--the idea that everybody has literary fingerprints, or, as he puts it, "no two individuals write exactly the same way, using the same words in the same combinations, or with the same patterns of spelling and punctuation." Foster is now an expert at identifying anonymous authors. He fell into this line of work accidentally. As a graduate student who spent his days reading forgotten Elizabethan texts, Foster stumbled upon "A Funeral Elegy" by one "W.S." Through careful research, recounted in Author Unknown, he showed that it was, in fact, a long-lost poem of Shakespeare's. His claim was controversial; a chapter on this experience is as much a lesson in academic politics as attribution theory. "To propose an addition to the Shakespeare canon is like announcing that you've found a lost book of the Bible, due for inclusion in future editions," he writes. "History shows that it is usually the attributor who gets burned." For Foster, however, it became a launching pad.

In what is his most interesting chapter, Foster explains how he deduced Joe Klein was "Anonymous," the author of the bestselling book Primary Colors. He also became involved in the Unabomber case and a search for the identity of the mysterious novelist Thomas Pynchon. Foster is sometimes said to use computer programs to determine an author's identity, but this is only partly true: he employs searchable databases, and then conducts all of the comparative analysis himself. "Give anonymous offenders enough verbal rope and column inches, and they will hang themselves for you, every time," he writes. The first three chapters--focusing on Shakespeare, Klein, and the Unabomber--are the best part of the book; the rest of it, at times, feels like filler. Yet as a whole, Author Unknown is a compelling blend of autobiography, detective story, and literary analysis. --John J. Miller