104 Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 31/ x The shrewd businessmen and experienced professionals of the Printing Subcommittee applied their pragmatic and entrepreneurial skills to the business of publishing from the outset of their dealings with the privileged presses who held the monopoly for printing the Bible in English, that is, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Royal Printer. The Fses set up a system where the three presses competed against one another. The privileged presses expanded their plants, acquired mechanized equipment, enormously increased their holdings of type, improved the quality of paper used, and experimented with book design in order to win contracts. The aFss was deeply involved in experiments with new technology such as stereotyp- ing and machine presses. In quest of permanent and durable paper of good quality, the Fses engaged a chemist to determine suitable standards for papermaking to meet its criteria for Bible printing. 'As well as hounding their suppliers about deadlines and quality control, they were fully prepared to exert the economic pressure of the large customer' (p. 94). But methods for cutting costs and improving efficiency, suitable for dealing with the powerful privileged presses, when used successfully against the small independent bookbinders, laid the arms open to severe criticism and justified charges by Auxiliary members, who were mainly women, of using sweated labour. The outcome was, however, that standards, techniques, and technologies in all branches of the British book trades improved radically. Leslie Howsam's splendid book is thoroughly researched, and is well and carefully written. A work of profound scholarship, it is at the same time presented with a light hand, and is well worthy to be part of the prestigious Cambridge Studies in Publishing History Series. If one totally subjective criticism can be made in a scholarly review, it is that the title of this book, while suitable, may well fail to attract the readership the book merits. Caviling aside, however, buy it or borrow it, but do 'read, digest and inwardly absorb' it. JOYCE M. BANKS National Library of Canada John Collins. The Two Forgers: A Biography of Harry Buxton Forman ed~Thomas James Wise. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Books, 1992. xiii, [I], 3I7, [11 PP-; $5 5.oo U.s. (paper boards). IsmN 0-938768-29-8- The publication in I 934 of An Enquiry into the Nature of CertainNineteenth CenturyPamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard caused a sensation in the world of books and book collecting with its exposure of literary forgery on a grand and systematic scale. Using their knowledge of bibliography, printing types, paper, and ink, Carter and Pollard examined a number of 'first I05 Books in Review / Comptes rendus editions' that had appeared on the market in a steady stream from the late 1880s (including works by the Brownings, Swinburne, Morris, Stevenson, Tennyson, George Eliot, Ruskin, Kipling, D.G. Rossetti, Thackeray, and others), and demonstrated that the pamphlets were not what they purported to be. Even more shockingly, although they made no direct accusation, the authors presented evidence that traced the authentication and marketing, if not the actual manufacturing, of the forgeries to Thomas J. Wise, one of the most influentialbook collectors and bibliographers of his day. The book world waited in vain for an explanation from one of its senior statesmen. After some feeble attempts to discredit the research of Carter and Pollard and an effort to exonerate himself by placing the blame on Harry Buxton Forman, a colleague and friend who had been dead for nearly twenty years, Wise, pleading ill- health, retreated into the silence which he maintained until his death three years later. The death of WVise did not put an end to the subject. Carter and Pollard regarded the original Enquiry as a 'work-in-progress' and continued to gather documentation for a revised edition. Some of the results of their labours found their way into print as articles, conference proceedings, and a series of 'working papers,' but the new edition itself remained unfinished at the time of the enquirers' deaths in March 1975 and November 1976. The task of completing the work fell to Nicolas Barker and John Collins who brought it to fruition in 1983 in the form of a corrected reprint of the original Enquiry supplemented by a Sequel to 'An Enquiry' which documented fully the role of Wise's partner in crime, Harry Buxton Forman. The two-volume set has been reprinted by Oak Knoll Book's as a companion to TI2e Two Forgers. In TI2e 'Two ForgersCollins utilizes and expands upon the material presented in I983 to form a narrative which traces the lives and careers of the two men and the course of their conspiracy. He begins with Forman, the senior of the two forgers, and provides the first extended biographical treatment accorded him. Born in London in 1842, Harry Buxton Forman spent his youth in Teignmouth, returning to London in 1860 where he joined tEe Post Office as a clerk. Although his circumstances were modest at first (he started at £580 a year), he became a specialist in overseas parcel posts which enabled him to progress to the position of joint second secretary at £1300 a year (an unusual accomplishment for a man of his station) before retiring in 1907. His retire- ment present was a Kelmscott Chaucer which completed his set of Kelmscott editions., During his early years in London Forman met and formed a lasting friend- ship with Richard Maurice Bucke, a young Canadian physician who was to become famous for his pioneering psychiatric work as the superintendent of the Asylum for the Insane at London, Ontario. The two men corresponded almost until Bucke's death in I902, and the letters from Forman, preserved in the Bucke papers at the University of Western Ontario, provide the only detailed accounts of his personal life, literary end~eavours, and book collect- ing. The last two were intimately connected, as a thorough comparison of manuscripts, original editions, and proof copies was an integral part of Io6 Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 31/I Forman's editorial method. His editions of the Works of Shelley (1876-80), the Letters of John Keats to PannyBrawne (I 876 ), and The Poetical and Other Writings of John Keats (1883) established his literary reputation. He was at work on The Shelley Library (1886), probably the best English author bibliog- raphy compiled up to that time, when he first met Wise in 1882. Then a neophyte in the literary world, Wise was making his mark in the world of commerce at the firm of Herman Rubeck & Co., commodities merchants, which he had entered as a humble clerk at the age of sixteen in 1875. A chief clerkship was all a man of his station could reasonably expect as the fulfilment of his career. But, by I892, Wise was cashier and manager of the firm, and by 1907, in partnership with Otto Rubeck, son of Herman, he had established himself as a manufacturer of 'essential oils.' In I9I2 he retired from Rubeck's, although he remained involved in the subsidiary company until about 1920. It was a remarkable climb from his humble roots in Islington which Collins is able to document. Wise's literary career began in 1882 when he joined the Browning Society, where he first met Forman, and assumed editorial responsibilities for their facsimile publications. He functioned in a similar capacity for the Shelley Society (founded 1886). In 1893 he began a 'Notes on Recent Book Sales' for The Bookman and, with its editor, Robertson Nicoll, produced Literary Anecdotes of the Nlineteenth Centuryin I896-97. In 1897 he commenced his series of author bibliographies, modeled on Forman's Shelley Library, with Swinburne and Browning. By the time of his retirement he was an established literary figure, a remarkable achievement for one whose formal education cannot be traced. Collins's account of the conspiracy of these two men is fascinating to read. It was Forman, it seems, who invented the 'creative forgeries' (a book or pamphlet which never existed but could have; Collins compares it to the Piltdown forgery!); Forman and Wise who produced them; and Wise, the commodity dealer, who was largely responsible for authenticating and mar- keting them. Both men placed their literary reputations in jeopardy, while Forman risked the loss of his position and pension if exposed - there were a few instances prior to Carter and Pollard when suspicions were aroused. The extra income, particularly in the mid-I890s, must have been welcome to two enthusiastic collectors whose desir·es probably outstripped their means, but Wise and Forman were acting illegally when they described and sold their forgeries as genuine. Forman, the more complex and interesting of the two men, does seem to have had some genuine regrets. Wise, who did not suffer the 'prick of conscience,' had to endure the ignominy of exposure in his final days. Both men have achieved a certain 'left-handed immortality' in biblio- graphical history; their story will continue to fascinate readers for years to come. MARIE KOREY Massey College, University of Toronto.