Book Forgery: History, Practice, and Detection

书籍伪造：历史、实践和检测

• 批准号: AH/W009544/1
• 负责人: Joseph Hone
• 金额: $ 24.85万
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FW009544%2F1
• 关键词: Book; Forgery; History; Practice; Detection

The history of the book goes hand-in-hand with the history of forgery. For as long as there have been rare and desirable books, copies and imitations have been manufactured. Over the past four hundred years the rise of successive new printing technologies has enabled the production of increasingly subtle and convincing fakes. These range from damaged books that have been 'sophisticated' with facsimile leaves to entirely fabricated volumes. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, printers across Europe counterfeited editions from the celebrated workshops of Aldus and Elzevir. Pirates in the eighteenth century would imitate the look and feel of prestige bestsellers by fraudulently copying typography, ornaments, and imprints. The antedated 'pre-first' forgeries of Thomas James Wise and Harry Buxton Forman in the nineteenth century established a pattern for printing fake books that would be repeatedly used and adapted over the next hundred years. In the twenty-first century we are entering a new chapter in the story. While librarians and archivists focus on digitising institutional collections, forgers are now transforming digital images back into physical print, fabricating handpress-era books from photopolymer plates based on scans downloaded from the internet. An unforeseen consequence of the digital revolution is that it has provided a wealth of raw material for the forgery of rare books. This project therefore addresses an urgent problem. Because of technological change, it has become vital to understand how the established techniques of bibliography can meet the new challenges of forgery in ways that engage the trade, collectors, librarians, printers, and scholars. As digital technologies continue to augment analogue modes of book production, forgeries have become both easier to produce and more difficult to detect. This project seeks to address the problem in two ways. Firstly, by charting the history of bibliographical deception and detection over the last four hundred years, from the era of Shakespeare to the present day. Secondly, by extrapolating from this historical inquiry a series of robust defences against contemporary and future attempts to counterfeit books. These two aims are inextricably linked because forged books from all periods continue to appear as authentic copies in the modern antiquarian trade, damaging cultural heritage, the commercial sector, and scholarship.The first part of this project will investigate illicit printing in Britain, Europe, and America since the early modern period, charting a new history of the book centred on the use of the printing press to manufacture fakes. A book-length study will combine detailed case studies with an exploration of broad patterns in the history of bibliographical forgery. It will also document how the techniques used to detect forgeries have evolved over the centuries, from tracing broken pieces of type to the chemical analysis of paper and use of new digital spectroscopy and microscopy techniques. The project will investigate the evolution of those techniques and how they might inform the future development of bibliography as an academic discipline. The second part of this project will bring together stakeholders from across the humanities, the book trade, and the libraries sector to consider the immediate problems presented by fakes and collaborate on solutions. This process will include collaboration with Northern Print in Newcastle, who will experiment with various techniques currently being used by forgers and facsimile printers. Drawing equally on the findings of this network and on archival research into the history of book forgery, the project will bring together academics with members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association to develop new industry-wide protocols for the handling of suspected fakes and forgeries. Through these activities, the project's academic findings will be translated for application in the commercial sector.

这本书的历史与伪造的历史密切相关。只要有珍本和令人向往的书存在，就会有复制品和仿制品被制造出来。在过去的四百年里，新印刷技术的不断兴起，使得制作出越来越精细和令人信服的赝品成为可能。这些书的范围从用传真叶子“复杂”的损坏书籍到完全伪造的书籍。在16世纪和17世纪，欧洲各地的印刷商都在伪造奥尔德斯和埃尔泽韦著名作坊的作品。18世纪的盗版者通过欺骗性地复制版式、装饰和印记来模仿著名畅销书的外观和感觉。早在19世纪，托马斯·詹姆斯·怀斯和哈里·巴克斯顿·福尔曼的“pre-first”伪造书建立了一种印刷假书的模式，这种模式在接下来的一百年里被反复使用和改编。在21世纪，我们正在进入历史的新篇章。当图书管理员和档案管理员专注于将机构馆藏数字化时，造假者正在将数字图像转换回实体印刷，根据从互联网下载的扫描件，用光聚合物制版制作手工印刷时代的书籍。数字革命的一个不可预见的后果是，它为伪造珍本书籍提供了丰富的原材料。因此，这个项目解决了一个紧迫的问题。由于技术的变化，了解已建立的目录学技术如何以涉及贸易、收藏家、图书管理员、印刷商和学者的方式应对伪造的新挑战变得至关重要。随着数字技术不断增强图书生产的模拟模式，伪造品变得更容易生产，也更难以检测。这个项目试图从两个方面解决这个问题。首先，通过绘制书目欺骗和侦查的历史在过去的四百年，从莎士比亚时代到现在。其次，通过从这一历史调查中推断出一系列针对当代和未来伪造书籍的强大防御措施。这两个目标是密不可分的，因为在现代古物交易中，各个时期的伪造书籍继续以真迹的形式出现，破坏了文化遗产、商业部门和学术。该项目的第一部分将调查自近代以来英国、欧洲和美国的非法印刷，绘制以印刷机制造赝品为中心的书籍的新历史。一本书长度的研究将结合详细的案例研究与书目伪造史上广泛模式的探索。它还将记录用于检测赝品的技术是如何在几个世纪里发展起来的，从追踪破碎的字体到对纸张进行化学分析，以及使用新的数字光谱和显微镜技术。该项目将调查这些技术的演变，以及它们如何为目录学作为一门学科的未来发展提供信息。该项目的第二部分将汇集来自人文学科、图书贸易和图书馆部门的利益相关者，共同考虑赝品所带来的紧迫问题，并就解决方案进行合作。这一过程将包括与纽卡斯尔的北方印刷公司合作，他们将试验各种目前被伪造者和传真印刷者使用的技术。该项目将利用该网络的研究成果和对图书伪造历史的档案研究成果，将学者与古董书商协会的成员聚集在一起，制定新的全行业协议，以处理可疑的赝品和伪造品。通过这些活动，该项目的学术成果将被转化为商业部门的应用。