Famous Impostors

Famous Impostors is the last of four non-fiction books completed by Bram Stoker, published in 1910. It features numerous historical impostors and hoaxes. The work was released thirteen years after Dracula.

The first edition was published by the Sturgis & Walton Company of New York in November 1910. The British edition was published by Sidgwick & Jackson of London, also dated 1910, but printed in the United States. Newspaper and magazine coverage showed that it was published in January 1911.

Contents

• Pretenders
• Perkin Warbeck
• The Hidden King — Sebastian of Portugal
• Stephan Mali — Šćepan Mali
• The False Dauphins
• Princess Olive
• Practitioners of Magic
• Paracelsus
• Cagliostro
• Mesmer
• The Wandering Jew
• John Law
• Witchcraft and Clairvoyance
• Witches
• Doctor Dee
• La Voisin
• Sir Edward Kelley
• Mother Damnable - a brewer and owner of today's The World's End, Camden. Suspected witch after her death.
• Matthew Hopkins
• Arthur Orton (Tichborne claimant)
• Women as Men
• The Motive for Disguise
• Hannah Snell
• La Maupin
• Mary East
• Hoaxes, Etc.
• Two London Hoaxes — includes the Berners Street hoax
• The Cat Hoax — a scam to buy cats brought to a certain address
• The Military Review — a false parade announced at 1812
• The Toll-Gate — a practical joke played by Charles Mayne Young for not paying a toll
• The Marriage Hoax — a marriage stopped by the false claim that the groom already had a wife and children
• Buried Treasure — a false treasure unearthed by a victim and a swindler, which gives his share to the victim in exchange for something of value
• Dean Swift's Hoax — an alleged letter written by a criminal about his accomplices and hideouts
• Hoaxed Burglars — thieves steal a secure box containing lead
• Bogus Sausages — sausages are discovered to be skins filled with bread
• The Moon Hoax
• Chevalier d'Eon — A French diplomat, spy and soldier of ambiguous gender identity. Stoker's inclusion of d'Éon is now regarded

as offensive.

• The Bisley Boy — A claim that Queen Elizabeth I of England was secretly a man

References

External links

• Famous Impostors at Project Gutenberg
• Famous Impostors at BramStoker.org Full PDF version of Famous Impostors.