The true story of a brilliantly forged Emily Dickinson poem sold at Sotheby's in 1997. The author's detective work led him across America, to a prison cell in Salt Lake City, where the world's greatest literary forger, Mark Hofmann, is serving a life sentence for double-murder. Mark Hoffman is no ordinary murderer. Until he was incarcerated he was the world's greatest literary forger: a man who combined meticulous historical research with craftsmanship and forensic science. In 1997, one of his most accomplished forgeries, a poem by the much-loved 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson, turned up at a Sotheby's and was sold for $21,000 to the library in Dickinson's home town, Amherst. The find was the equivalent of unearthing a Shakespeare sonnet. However, Daniel Lombardo, the curator at the library in Amherst who had raised the money for the poem, was plagued by doubts. He had learned of a possible link between the poem and the notorious Mark Hoffman. Appalled at the prospect of having let down his home town, Lombardo was drawn into an investigation which, to his horror, revealed the extent of Hoffman's genius. Simon Worrall stumbled across the story and resolved to find out more about the fake's trajectory across America. He delves into Hoffman's Mormon background, his self-hypnosis, his unparalleled skill at replicating the exact circumstances of a document's manufacture. He explores the history of literary forgery from the Ptolemaic Egyptians to the present day; he uncovers the cunning behind Hoffman's car-bomb murders; he is drawn into a labyrinth of secretive deals and mysterious middlemen. In this literary mystery thriller Worrall deals with the secretive world of the Mormon church, the historical documents business, the science of forensic testing and the glamour of the auction houses. He also brings the characters alive: Emily Dickinson herself in 1871 - the year the poem was purportedly written; Lombado and his journey from innocence to experience; the Dickinson expert Ralph Franklin who had originally informed Sotheby's that the poem was authentic. Above all, this is the definitive account of the Rembrandt of literary forgery, one of the most chillingly compelling criminals the world has ever seen.