FAMOUS IMPOSTORS
FAMOUS IMPOSTORS
BY
BRAM STOKER
AUTHOR OF “DRACULA,” “PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF
HENRY IRVING,” ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
New York
STURGIS & WALTON
COMPANY
1910
All rights reserved
Copyright 1910
By BRAM STOKER
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1910
The subject of imposture is always an interestingone, and impostors in one shape or another arelikely to flourish as long as human nature remainswhat it is, and society shows itself ready to begulled. The histories of famous cases of imposturein this book have been grouped together toshow that the art has been practised in many forms—impersonators,pretenders, swindlers, and humbugsof all kinds; those who have masqueraded inorder to acquire wealth, position, or fame, andthose who have done so merely for the love of theart. So numerous are instances, indeed, that thebook cannot profess to exhaust a theme whichmight easily fill a dozen volumes; its purpose issimply to collect and record a number of the bestknown instances. The author, nevertheless, whoselargest experience has lain in the field of fiction,has aimed at dealing with his material as with thematerial for a novel, except that all the facts givenare real and authentic. He has made no attemptto treat the subject ethically; yet from a study ofthese impostors, the objects they had in view, themeans they adopted, the risks they ran, and thepunishments which attended exposure, any readercan draw his own conclusions.
Impostors of royalty are placed first on accountof the fascinating glamour of the throne which hasallured so many to the attempt. Perkin Warbeckbegan a life of royal imposture at the age of seventeenand yet got an army round him and dared tomake war on Harry Hotspur before ending hisshort and stormy life on the gallows. With acrown for stake, it is not surprising that men havebeen found willing to run even such risks as thosetaken by the impostors of Sebastian of Portugaland Louis XVII of France. That imposture,even if unsuccessful, may be very difficult to detect,is shown in the cases of Princess Olive and Cagliostro,and in those of Hannah Snell, MaryEast, and the many women who in military andnaval, as well as in civil, life assumed and maintainedeven in the din of battle the simulation ofmen.
One of the most extraordinary and notorious imposturesever known was that of Arthur Orton, theTichborne Claimant, whose ultimate exposure necessitatedthe employment, at great public expenseof time and money, of the best judicial and forensicwits in a legal process of unprecedented length.
The belief in witches, though not extinct in ourcountry even to-day, affords examples of the converseof imposture, for in the majority of cases itwas the superstitions of society which attributedpowers of evil to innocent persons whose subsequentviimock-trials and butchery made a public holidayfor their so-called judges.
The long-continued doubt