Pretenders and Imposters - Part One

Over the course of my many years of reading, I have come across the "pretender" or the "imposter" in both an historical and fictional sense. And it got me wondering, how many books out there featured the "imposter" or "pretender" as their main subject. So, here is a short list of those that interested me:

The Great Pretenders : The True Stories Behind Famous Historical Mysteries by Jan Bondeson

Jan Bondeson, M.D., focuses his medical expertise and insightful wit on the great unsolved mysteries of disputed identity of the last two hundred years. In this highly entertaining work covering the most famous cases of disputed identity, Jan Bondeson uncovers all the evidence, then applies his medical knowledge and logical thinking to ascertain the true stories behind these fascinating histories. "Bondeson examines hitherto neglected documents and adds his valuable medical knowledge....Entertaining studies of classic imposters and a public inclined to be gullible even before the age of TV." (Kirkus Reviews)

The Perfect Prince: The Mystery of Perkin Warbeck and His Quest for the Throne of England by Ann Wroe

Describes the efforts of Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flanders boatman, to persuade some of the most powerful monarchs of the era that he was the rightful king of England and the repercussions of his masquerade.

Historical Sketch of Perkin Warbeck by Edwin Hennes

Published in 1902 I can find next to nothing to describe its contents.

Famous Imposters (also titled: The Greatest Imposters & Con Artists) by Bram Stoker

The histories of famous cases of imposture in this book have been grouped together to show that the art has been practised in many forms, impersonators, pretenders, swindlers, and humbugs of all kinds; those who have masqueraded in order to acquire wealth, position, or fame, and those who have done so merely for the love of the art. So numerous are instances, indeed, that the book cannot profess to exhaust a theme which might easily fill a dozen volumes.

The Lost King of France: Revolution, Revenge, and the Search for Louis XVII by Deborah Cadbury

Louis-Charles Bourbon enjoyed a charmed early childhood in the gilded palace of Versailles. In 1793, when his mother was beheaded at the guillotine, she left her adored eight-year-old son imprisoned in the Temple Tower. Far from inheriting a throne, the orphaned boy-King had to endure the hostility and abuse of a nation. Two years later, the Revolutionary leaders declared Louis XVII was dead. No grave was dug, no monument built to mark his passing. Immediately, rumours spread that the Prince had, in fact, escaped from prison and was still alive. Others believed that he had been murdered, his heart cut out and preserved as a relic. In time, his older sister, Marie-Therese, who survived the Revolution, was approached by countless 'brothers' who claimed not only his name, but also his inheritance. Several 'princes' were plausible, but which, if any, was the real Louis-Charles?

The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope

English gentleman Rudolf Rassendyll arrives in the country of Ruritania on the eve of King Rudolf the Fifth's coronation. That night, the king is abducted and held prisoner in a castle in the small town of Zenda. Rassendyll, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the monarch, is persuaded to impersonate him in order to stop his villainous half-brother, Prince Michael, from seizing the throne. Determined to rescue the king and restore him to his rightful place, Rassendyll attempts to free him, but can he defeat the dastardly Count Rupert of Hentzau who stands in his way? A swashbuckling adventure that never takes itself too seriously.

Captain Starlight: The Strange but True Story of a Bushranger, Imposter and Murderer by Jane Smith

Author Jane Smith’s meticulous research reveals the stranger than fiction story of a compulsive liar and serial imposter: a doctor, a stockman and an accountant – and a bushranger, forger, con-man and killer. It is a true story of murder and deceit that reveals new information and presents, for the first time, a theory as to the real identity of the bushranger known as ‘Captain Starlight’.

Fakers by Paul Maliszewski

Paul Maliszewski explores the teeming varieties of fakery, from its historical roots in satire and con artistry to its current boom, starring James Frey and his false memories of drug-addled dissolution and the author formerly known as JT LeRoy with his fake rural tough talk. Journeying into the heart of our fake world, Maliszewski tells tales of the New York Sun's 1835 moon hoax as well as his own satiric contributions to a newspaper--pieces written, unbeknownst to its editor, while the author worked there as a reporter. For anyone who has ever lied or been lied to, Fakers tells us much about what we believe and why we still get conned.

Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance: The Glorious Imposter by Donald B Smith

Profiles the life of Buffalo Child Long Lance, a man of mixed heritage who escaped the poverty of his North Carolina town and gained fame by lying about his age, name, tribal affiliation, status, and accomplishments.

Perkin Warbeck by Ian Arthurson

This book looks at who Warbeck really was, how he was used by those in power in Burgundy, France, Italy, Scotland and Ireland, and the progress of the conspiracy itself. It has often been considered to be a side issue to Henry's reign, but this book reveals how close the conspirators came to bringing about a fundamental change in European politics. Importantly, Ian Arthurson not only sets the plot within the context of what was happening in fifteenth-century Europe, but also reveals important truths about Henry's reign in England.

The Escape of Alexei, Son of Tsar Nicholas II by Gregory B Egorov

The Russian Romanov dynasty came to an abrupt end on the night of July 17, 1918, when the imperial family was executed by the Bolsheviks. Or did it Compelling new evidence reveals that Tsarevich Alexei, the fourteen year-old son of Nicholas II and heir to the Russian throne, may have escaped the bloodshed and been adopted by a local family in a nearby village. Meticulously researched and documented, The Escape of Alexei details how Bolshevik soldiers bungled the execution, leading to confusion and chaos during the shooting. Young Alexei was merely wounded and unconscious when he was loaded onto the back of a truck with corpses of his murdered family and driven to the secret burial site. Falling out of the truck en route and left for dead, he was found by sympathetic soldiers who attended to the young hemophiliac's wounds and helped him escape, introducing him into a peasant family where he grew up under the name of Vasily Filatov.

The Pretender by Mary Morrissy

In The Pretender, Mary Morrissy writes the prequel to the Anastasia myth. She creates a fictional history for Franziska Schanzkowska, the Polish factory worker who so successfully donned the mantle of the doomed princess. From the few facts that are known, Morrissy fashions the biography of a nobody - an impoverished Polish childhood, an adolescence set against the First World war and the ruinous humiliation of Germany in defeat, a young adulthood blighted by violence, trauma and loss. 

Kings over the Water: The Saga of the Stuart Pretenders by Theo Aronson

Of all royal lost causes, none has a stronger fascination than that of the Stuart Pretenders to the British throne. For well over a century, four successive Stuart kings laid claim to the crown. The first was James II, deposed in 1688 by his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange; then came James III (the Old Pretender) and his son, Charles III (Bonnie Prince Charlie — the Young Pretender); finally, there was Henry IX (the Cardinal King) who died in 1807, the last descendant in direct and legitimate line from James II. This book tells the story of these four men, and of their families.

Bastard Prince by Beverley Murphy

Today, however, Henry Fitzroy is very much a forgotten Tudor prince. In the first book to examine his life in full, Beverley A. Murphy investigates just how close he came to being crowned Henry IX. She concludes with an intriguing epilogue which demonstrates just how different the history of England could have been, had Fitzroy survived his father, Henry VIII of England.

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die--Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.

The Impostor by Javier Cercus

Who is Enric Marco? An old man from Barcelona who claims to be a Nazi concentration camp survivor and rises to be president of Spain's leading Holocaust survivor movement, the Friends of Mauthausen. By the time he is unmasked in Austria in 2005 on the eve of the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the camp, he has become a civic hero, speaking at hundreds of conferences, granting dozens of interviews, receiving state honours, publishing a successful memoir and even moving Spanish congressmen to tears at a memorial homage to Republicans deported by the Third Reich.

Masquerade: Treason, the Holocaust, and an Irish Impostor by Mark M Hull and Vera Moynes

Phyllis Ursula James. Nora O'Mara. Róisín Ní Mheara. Like her name, the life of Rosaleen James changed many times as she followed a convoluted path from abandoned child, to foster daughter of an aristocratic British family, to traitor during World War II, to her emergence as a full Irish woman afterward. In Masquerade, authors Mark M. Hull and Vera Moynes tell James's story as it unfolds against the backdrop of the most important events of the twentieth century. James's life--both real and imagined--makes for an incredible but true story.

Playing Rudolf Hess by Nicholas Kinsey

In 1973 the aging Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess was taken from Spandau Prison to the British Military hospital in Berlin for a medical examination attended by specialists from the four Allied powers. Dr Terry supervised the X-rays and was shocked to discover that the prisoner has no scarring on his chest. The real Rudolf Hess had been shot through the left lung in Romania in 1917 and had large scars on his chest. Dr Terry decided to investigate and ran into the MI5 officer Paul Cummings whose job was to discourage such efforts. In a Berlin ‘biergarten’ Cummings threatened Dr Terry with the Official Secrets Act and revealed his own relationship to the man.