1788 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · GermanyA Fortune Sometimes Rests in a Pocket
Elisabetha Gassner: a thief and the vestments of her legend.
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A name, a coat, a well-told story: enough to begin a life anew?
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1803 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Name the Gentleman Had Borrowed
Hatfield: the marriage that rendered an imposture too famous.
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1560 · 16th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceTwo Men for a Single Past
Martin Guerre and Arnaud du Tilh: whom do we truly recognize when we claim…
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1888 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Diamonds Had Not Changed Their Name
Prado multiplied his identities; Marie Aguétant’s jewels drew the inquiry…
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1829 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Missing Line in the Green Book
Thomas Maynard: the forged instrument that knew the habits of the counting…
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1786 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Genuine Coin Was Counterfeit
Phoebe Harris: the outward semblance of coin, the contradictions of a cruc…
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1824 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Dividends Kept Arriving
Frances Young received her remittances with exemplary punctuality. Yet at…
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1832 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Parchment and the Door
Jean Spadoni, the false Brother Léger: three episcopal seals to gain entry…
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1832 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Price of a Cured Cow
Old Father Malandin: a miraculous cure, forty sous, and a year behind bars.
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1783 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Name Beneath the Print
The King’s engraver lent credit to papers of too perfect a resemblance. Wh…
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1777 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Signatures That Saved No One
The tutor borrowed his former pupil’s name upon a bond of four thousand tw…
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1828 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Lands That No One Could Find
In the penal bagne of Rochefort, Anthelme Collet preferred to speak of the…
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1819 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Count and the Witnesses from the Galleys
A lieutenant-colonel refuses the name bestowed upon him by the law. In 181…
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1833 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Paper Firms
From his beginnings as an itinerant peddler to his arrest in 1833, Richard…
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1815 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Words That Were Worth Two Pounds
England, 1812–1815. In the case of Joseph Blackburn, an attorney of Leeds,…
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1751 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Three Missing Notes
England, 1748–1751. William Chandler contrives a highway robbery to claim…
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1786 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Assumed Names of Charles Price
Charles Price assumed numerous identities and disguises to put forged bank…
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1804 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Paper Widow
Henry Perfect solicited the Earl of Clarendon by impersonating, in turn, a…
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1791 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceOne Hundred and Fifty-Three Voices for a Name
A woman appeared at Champignelles in 1791, claiming the name and heritage…
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1788 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · GermanyA Thousand Ducats and a Letter Too Many
Dresden, 1788. Following the theft of the Magdalen attributed to Correggio…
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1613 · 17th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · GermanyThe Gentleman Awaiting His Mail
Lichtenburg, 1613. A letter opens the residence of the Electress of Saxony…
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1887 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · France (Paris)The Dowries of the Baroness de Mortier
Paris, 1887. A matrimonial agency advertises wealthy heiresses, orchestrat…
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1814 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe False Death of Napoleon
In February 1814, fabricated tidings of victory sent London market prices…
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1893 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Warrant of Avenue Marceau
On the night of January 27–28, 1893, thieves gained entry into the townhou…
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1849 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Pit Beneath the Flagstones of Miniver Place
Bermondsey, 1849. Patrick O’Connor vanishes after being seen near the Mann…
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1875 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Black Seal of Eisenach
In 1875, John Harvey received confidential letters announcing an inheritan…
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1804 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · Prussia (Warsaw)The Three Carrots of Nowawies
In Warsaw, in 1804, Jean Coulon denounced an alleged poisoning plot aimed…
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1825 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · GermanyThe Letters of the Absent Duke
In Nuremberg, Jakob Reithaler, placed as a boy into the care of the Waldst…
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1862 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Rifleman’s Patent
Paris, November 1861–January 1862. A traveller lodges at the Hôtel des Gen…
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1874 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Claimant of Wagga Wagga
In 1866, Thomas Castro, a former butcher in Australia, came forward claimi…
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1861 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Number Bound to Win
Tours, a case reported in an issue bearing the front-page date of 4 Januar…
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1886 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EuropeAllmayer, or the Art of Assuming Every Role
In November 1886, Allmayer broke out of Mazas Prison by means of a forged…
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1873 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Railway That Had Already Crossed the Ocean
Paris, May 1873. The Court of Appeal confirms, while defining its particul…
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1873 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Château That Did Not Belong to the Subscribers
Paris, March 1873. The correctional tribunal heard the matter of a financi…
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1886 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · United KingdomThe Lady Who Changed Her Name with Every City
A narrative dossier devoted to Gordon, drawn from Arthur Griffiths’s retro…
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1887 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · United KingdomHarry Benson, Purveyor of Promises
A narrative dossier devoted to Benson, drawn from the retrospective chapte…
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1784 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · United KingdomThe Major Who Kept Returning
Following a career in the profession of arms, Major Semple returned to Eng…
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1862 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Millions of the Caisse Mirès
In Paris, the judicial inquiry opened against Jules Mirès brought to light…
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1853 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · GermanyThe Count of the Invisible Houses
Berlin, 1852–1853. The seamstress Wilhelmine Krauß extracted sums from her…
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1874 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Restaurateur and the Four Bearer Bonds
In Chambéry, four bearer bonds stolen from the home of President Tiollier…
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1875 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Double-Exposure Spectre
Paris, June 1875. Buguet fabricates apparitions by photographing pre-arran…
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1874 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Two Missing Letters
Paris, 1871–1872. Money orders addressed to hospitalized soldiers vanish;…
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1750 · 18th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Sailor’s Last Will
According to the retrospective chronicle of Camden Pelham, John Carr, a fo…
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1874 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Printing Press on the Third Floor
In Avignon, an assize trial brought ten defendants to the dock over the ma…
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1875 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Carpetbag and the Bonds of the City
In 1875, Adolphe-Aimé Chasteau was brought to the bar of the Assizes on th…
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1875 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Shop That Was No More
In Paris, thirteen defendants stood trial for swindles in wine and coal, o…
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1877 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Counterfeiter’s Candles
Three spurious coins discovered on a drunken locksmith led the police to a…
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1878 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Year That Vanished from the Lease
A bootmaker is compelled to vacate his premises a full year prior to the d…
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1841 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Paper That Knew How to Lose
A gambler pays his losses with banknotes struck from genuine engravers’ pl…
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1878 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Laval Consignment Receipts
First in Brussels, then in Paris, Gogué secured goods and cash through two…
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1828 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Advertisement and the Bolted Door
In February 1828, a newspaper advertisement for a loan led Mr. Mullay to R…
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1899 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · FranceThe Aliases of the False Widow
Paris, January 1899. The woman Pesnel, wife of Dumortier, admitted to sign…
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1810 · 19th century · historical setting
Impostures & Fortunes · EnglandThe Son the Sailor Had Never Seen
London and Gosport, circa 1810. Having fabricated a pregnancy and a son fo…
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