[.ca] Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (ISBN 0805063579)

From Amazon.com:
This fascinating book describes how an English professor became a detective, sort of. Don Foster still teaches literature at Vassar College, but he's recognized as an expert in attributional theory--the idea that everybody has literary fingerprints, or, as he puts it, "no two individuals write exactly the same way, using the same words in the same combinations, or with the same patterns of spelling and punctuation." Foster is now an expert at identifying anonymous authors. He fell into this line of work accidentally. As a graduate student who spent his days reading forgotten Elizabethan texts, Foster stumbled upon "A Funeral Elegy" by one "W.S." Through careful research, recounted in Author Unknown, he showed that it was, in fact, a long-lost poem of Shakespeare's. His claim was controversial; a chapter on this experience is as much a lesson in academic politics as attribution theory. "To propose an addition to the Shakespeare canon is like announcing that you've found a lost book of the Bible, due for inclusion in future editions," he writes. "History shows that it is usually the attributor who gets burned." For Foster, however, it became a launching pad. In what is his most interesting chapter, Foster explains how he deduced Joe Klein was "Anonymous," the author of the bestselling book Primary Colors. He also became involved in the Unabomber case and a search for the identity of the mysterious novelist Thomas Pynchon. Foster is sometimes said to use computer programs to determine an author's identity, but this is only partly true: he employs searchable databases, and then conducts all of the comparative analysis himself. "Give anonymous offenders enough verbal rope and column inches, and they will hang themselves for you, every time," he writes. The first three chapters--focusing on Shakespeare, Klein, and the Unabomber--are the best part of the book; the rest of it, at times, feels like filler. Yet as a whole, Author Unknown is a compelling blend of autobiography, detective story, and literary analysis. --John J. Miller

Thought-provoking, fun to read.:
This was a fun book to read. It gave a general feel for what literary attribution is all about, which is why I got the book, but also kept me interested with its suspenseful storytelling. As some other reviewers have stated, there is perhaps a bit of pettiness as he tells of his vindication from the doubts of others, but as far as I'm concerned, good on 'im. He seems like a mild-mannered fellow, and his persistence in his research against the often ridiculous and aggressive loud-mouths is actually kind of satisfying. Good book. Highly recommend it.

Literary detections makes good reading:
Don Foster is the guy who figured out who wrote Primary Colors, the anonymously published novel that satirized Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and for a time had all of Washington wondering who done it. Foster fingered Joe Klein as the culprit using a method he had first applied in his doctoral dissertation to "A Funeral Elegy," a 17th-century poem that was written by a certain "W.S." after the death by homicide of William Peter of Exeter. Foster determined that the W.S. in question was in fact William Shakespeare. Foster's method of attributional detection involves examining the internal evidence of "questioned documents"--the vocabulary, orthography, spelling, and punctuation used by the author--and comparing his findings to the known writings of some finite number of likely suspects. Writers leave their marks on manuscripts unconsciously, Foster explains, as surely as gloveless burglars leave their fingerprints, their identities betrayed in their phrasing and word choice, in the body of authors whose styles they unwittingly emulate, in their commas and ampersands. Foster's Shakespearian bombshell landed him on the front page of the New York Times early in 1996. His celebrity resulted in this mild-mannered English professor being called upon to apply his attributional techniques to a great many other cases, some of them headline-making, in which the authorship of an important document was in question. In his fascinating book Author Unknown Foster discusses six of the cases in which he has been involved, from his investigation of the Unabomber's literary produce after Ted Kaczynski's arrest, to a study of the Talking Points document Monica Lewinsky once handed Linda Tripp, to a debate about who really wrote "The Night Before Christmas." You think the man responsible for jollying up Saint Nick and transforming Christmas into a wretched holiday for the rapacious was Clement Clarke Moore, that birchen-rod-loving Biblical scholar who hated dance and song and noise and all things fun but wasn't above taking credit where it wasn't due? Think again.

Interesting book, but more or less obsolete now:
Foster is a good writer and does a good job telling his "detective stories". Unfortunately, in 2002 Foster admitted that the main feather in his cap, his attribution of the "Funeral Elegy" to Shakespeare, was wrong; other Shakespeare scholars had demonstrated that it was almost certainly written by John Ford. Another widely touted "discovery" from this book, that Clement C. Moore plagiarized "A Visit From St. Nicholas", has been subject to fairly convincing counter-arguments by several writers, including Stephen Nissenbaum, that I haven't seen Foster respond to at length. Even before then I thought Foster's case against Moore was weak because most of it seemed to center on the argument that Moore wasn't the right type of personality to write the poem, rather than any strong textual evidence. What next, argue that Dr. Seuss couldn't have written any of the books attributed to him because he never had children? Foster seems like a sincere person, and he has a very innovative methodology, but you have to wonder whether being in the spotlight has led him to pick up some very sloppy research and scholarship habits. This is still a book worth looking at if you happen to find it in a library or bargain table, but make sure you have some grains of salt handy.

Fascinating!:
After reading the introduction, I was hooked. I knew I'd have to read the whole thing, no matter how tedious and technical it might be. Lucky for me, it was neither. With the exception of a sometimes dull first chapter, it was a lively and entertaining book. Foster's "literary detection" began with his doctoral thesis. He found a poem he thought likely to have been written by Shakespeare. He comparing writing styles, specific words, references and other "internal evidence" to known Shakespearian works. With this, Foster was able to determine that yes, "A Funeral Elegy" was written by the Bard himself. Due to the press he received by this announcement, he was contacted for his opinion on the anonymous author Primary Colors. Using the same methodology, he successfully pinpointed the author as Joe Klein--who denied it vehemently for some time before admitting his authorship. In addition to these highly publicized cases, Foster writes about his un-used work on both Unabomber case and the Talking Points, his angering of some Thomas Poyner fans and the truth behind "Twas the Night Before Christmas." This was an entertaining and enlightening book that I highly recommend. It's certainly the only non-fiction book I've ever stayed up late to read! I give it a 9.5 out of 10.

"Quick, Watson, to the manuscript!":
One would think that a book by and about a literary detective would be about as exciting as sitting in a traffic jam waiting for the light to change, but Foster's sharp wit and infectious enthusiasm-- not to mention his perceptive insights-- make this book as invigorating as a fresh pot of coffee as he uncovers the true authorship of various manuscripts. He is also very candid about his doubts and shortcomings; otherwise, he would have come off as just too pompous. The cynic in me wants to think that his methods could be outwitted by a good mimic or computer program, but he's worked out his methodology pretty well-- one can easily see him as a cast member of C.S.I. Maybe now he can identify the real individuals behind the names Shakespeare, Traven, and Junius. PS: kinda makes you rethink the next item on the review form, doesn't it?