BY DENE BEBBINGTON
Fake news, it’s the bogeyman du jour that Donald Trump is accused of spreading or railing against depending on what suits him at the time. The media warns us about it while fact checkers debunk it, but fake news is as old as the proverbial hills. At one time it took on a more elaborate and, dare I say, more droll form, than we find today.
In 1704, two centuries before the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an unknown Frenchman came to London and, under the nom de plume George Psalmanazar, wrote a classic of fake news. Writing in a less malicious work than the vile Protocols, he claimed to be a native of Formosa (modern-day Taiwan) who’d been kidnapped by Jesuits in his exotic Asian homeland, then whisked off to France because of his facility with languages.
So who was Psalmanazar? Unfortunately, he took that secret to the grave, yet we do know this early literary hoaxer was born in France around 1680 and studied at a university. Proficient in Latin, he embarked on a bizarre imposture life at the age of 16, first claiming to be a Catholic pilgrim heading to Rome. When in Bonn he dreamt up the idea of pretending to be Japanese, having already invented a form of worship. During this period he took up the name Psalmanazar (a variation on the Assyrian prince, Shalmaneser) and extended his chicanery to writing.
In retrospect it was a precursor to his later hoax when he noted that, “This vain fit grew up to such a height that I made me a little book with figures of the sun, moon and stars, and such other imagery as my phrensy suggested to me, and filled the rest with a kind of gibberish prose and verse, written in my invented character, and which I muttered or chanted as often as humour took me.”
After meeting Scottish priest Alexander Innes in 1702 he’d travelled to London. No naif, Innes wasn’t fooled by the Frenchman and saw through Psalmanazar’s act, but rather than exposing the fraud used it to generate publicity for himself. Innes also had form in deception, having passed off the work Inquiry into the Original of Moral Virtue written by someone else as his own. Against his new found friend’s better judgement, Innes christened a reluctant Psalmanazar who’d already been baptised and expressed a fear of “bringing upon myself some heavy judgment for so impious a prophanation”. For a time both men benefited from what became known as the Formosa Hoax.
Most Europeans in the early 18th century were ignorant of the Far East. Presenting himself as an exotic stranger with new knowledge about the mysteries of far-off Formosa, in 1704 Psalmanazar published his book An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan which claimed to be, “Giving an account of the religion, customs, manners, &c., of the inhabitants. Together with a relation of what happened to the author in his travels; particularly his conferences with the Jesuits, and others, in several parts of Europe. Also the history and reasons of his conversion to Christianity, with his objections against it (in defence of Paganism) and their answers.” Of course, it was bunkum and not what it purported to be.
Psalmanazar mined a mélange of accounts from dead civilisations, plus exaggerations of real Japan, to concoct his description of Formosa. He even made up a convincing alphabet and language. The book’s success and translation into French and German led to speaking invitations, including at the eminent Royal Society.
Though many people were understandably fooled, those of a sceptical bent did challenge him. He typically batted away awkward questions with a glibly convenient answer, like saying that his pale skin was due to some Formosans living underground out of the sun. Luckily for him, contrary accounts by missionary Jesuits who’d actually been to Formosa didn’t expose his fraud since he plausibly countered their assertions – anti-Catholic prejudice in Britain giving him a defensive edge.
Psalmanazar went on to study theology and initially immersed himself in the lower end of the writing world. Rather than let his penchant for pretence get carried away into a full-blown Walter Mitty, he stayed modest and earnt a good reputation. Friendships he formed when working in Grub Street’s literary fringe populated by hack writers scraping a living buoyed his standing further. He met Dr Samuel Johnson who later gushed that, “Psalmanazar’s piety, penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful in the lives of the saints.”
Before his death in 1763, Psalmanazar redeemed himself slightly by coming clean that his renowned book was merely a tall tale. In a posthumous work titled Memoirs of **** . Commonly known by the Name of George Psalmanazar; A Reputed Native of Formosa published in 1764 he admitted to an opium addiction and his hoax, but didn’t reveal his real name, leaving us with an enduring mystery. Perhaps Henry Walpole summed him up best in noting that as a literary impostor he was possessed of greater genius than Thomas Chatterton. Beat that, Donald Trump!
Dene Bebbington is retired and writes in his spare time for various magazines. His website can be accessed here.