Unmasking the Oldest Trick: Why a Collection of Fakes Can Teach Us So Much About Truth
Imagine dedicating your life to understanding truth, then passionately arguing for your university to buy “an enormous collection of fake stuff.” That’s exactly what Earle Havens, the insightful Director of the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance at Johns Hopkins, did in 2011. He saw something special in the Bibliotheca Fictiva, a treasure trove of over 1,200 literary forgeries stretching across centuries, cultures, and languages. We’re talking about manuscripts supposedly penned by Shakespeare, works attributed to ancient Roman poets or Etruscan prophets, and poems by renowned theologians – all of it, in part or entirely, a masterful deception. It might sound paradoxical for a scholar of truth to champion a collection of lies, but Havens was resolute. He argued that in our increasingly complex world of information, where “fake news” was just beginning to truly take hold, this ancient collection of fabrications would offer an invaluable compass. He believed it would show us that the challenges we face with misinformation today aren’t new; they’ve been woven into the fabric of human communication since language and writing first began. His compelling pitch worked, and Johns Hopkins University, understanding the profound foresight in his vision, acquired the collection, now nestled within the charming, wainscoted rooms of the Evergreen Museum and Library, a 19th-century mansion in Baltimore.
This remarkable collection was painstakingly assembled by Arthur and Janet Freeman, a husband-and-wife duo who carved out a name for themselves in the discerning world of antiquarian booksellers. Their journey into the realm of literary forgeries began in 1961 when Arthur, then a graduate student at Harvard, became fascinated with John Payne Collier. Collier, a respected 19th-century scholar, had stirred up a significant controversy by claiming to have discovered thousands of annotations in a copy of Shakespeare’s Second Folio, purportedly written by a contemporary of the bard. The truth, however, was that Collier himself had forged these annotations. This initial spark ignited a lifelong passion for Freeman, who, until his passing in 2025, meticulously gathered a vast array of deceptive literary works. From poetry falsely attributed to Martin Luther, a man not known for his verse, to embellished accounts of Pope Joan, a legendary figure said to have disguised herself as a man to become Pope – only to be exposed by giving birth during a procession – each item in the collection tells a story of human ingenuity in manipulation. These tales, like the enduring myth of Pope Joan, which persisted for centuries before its firm debunking in the 17th century, highlight humanity’s long history of creating, believing, and perpetuating narratives, regardless of their factual basis.
Since its acquisition, the Bibliotheca Fictiva has become a cornerstone for Havens and other professors at Johns Hopkins, serving as a powerful tool to educate students about media literacy and the pervasive nature of misinformation. This approach marks a significant shift in academia, where the history of forgery was often overlooked or even dismissed. Havens notes a “light bulb” moment in our current information landscape, where scholars are “going back to the past to learn things about disinformation and fakery that are keenly relevant today.” He finds a certain comfort in recognizing that the challenges of discerning truth aren’t exclusive to our digital age. One of the most profound lessons students glean from the collection isn’t simply about identifying whether a text is true or false. Instead, it’s about understanding the intent behind the writing. Chinyere Ihim, a Johns Hopkins liberal arts graduate student who attended Havens’ seminar, beautifully articulates this shift in perspective. Her focus moved from “Is it true?” to a more critical examination: “Who created this? Who benefits from this, and why? What are they trying to do? What are they trying to exploit?” She emphasizes that whenever a piece of news feels suspicious, the crucial question becomes, “What fear, what desire, what cultural anxiety is this story exploiting?” This approach reveals that there’s always a motive behind deception, a hidden agenda that the forger or misinformation disseminator hopes to achieve.
A prime example of this intentional deception is the “Donation of Constantine,” arguably one of the most impactful forgeries in Western history. This eighth-century fake edict boldly asserted that the Roman Emperor Constantine had bestowed the Western Roman Empire upon the Pope. For centuries, the papacy wielded this fabrication to buttress its claims of political authority, effectively shaping the course of European history. It wasn’t until 1440, when the sharp mind of humanist scholar Lorenzo Valla meticulously debunked the decree, that its true nature was exposed. For Chinyere Ihim, encountering ancient travelogues with their fabricated accounts of distant lands and their inhabitants – often portrayed as “curiosities or savages” – brought a chilling realization about the power of narrative. She recognized how these seemingly innocuous “fictional stories became the blueprint for the transatlantic slave trade,” demonstrating how imagination, when weaponized, can tragically become a horrific reality. This exemplifies how deeply embedded and consequential fabricated narratives can be, shaping not just beliefs but actions with devastating outcomes.
While the fundamental human propensity for creating and believing falsehoods remains constant, our contemporary information environment has undergone a radical transformation. Kirsten Eddy, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center specializing in news and information habits, highlights how the internet and social media have profoundly altered people’s relationship with information. We are now “exposed to more information from more sources than ever before,” she notes, leading to a dual challenge: it’s not only harder to discern what to trust, but many people are experiencing “increasing fatigue with or even avoidance of the news.” This erosion of trust is evident in declining public confidence in major institutions and news media, particularly in the U.S., where national news organizations have seen a significant drop in credibility over the past decade, according to Pew Research Center. The arrival of generative AI promises to exacerbate this atmosphere of doubt. Recent findings from NewsGuard, a fact-checking website, revealed over 1,200 websites generating unreliable AI-produced news with minimal human oversight. Eddy points out that “People’s confidence in their own abilities to identify fake information or AI-generated information is not broad,” underscoring the growing difficulty individuals face in navigating this new landscape of manufactured content.
Thomas Hellström, who leads the intelligent robotics group at Umeå University in Sweden, theorizes that generative AI has the potential to shake the very foundations of how text is created and, critically, decrease our trust in the written word overall. However, another perspective suggests that AI is simply the latest tool in humanity’s long and winding history of shaping and distorting narratives. Damien Charlotin, a researcher at HEC Paris and Sciences Po who studies large language models, law, and disinformation, highlights how, even in the legal sphere, AI has been used to conjure up fake legal cases to bolster arguments. Yet, Charlotin reminds us, “in the legal domain, playing fast and loose with authorities, cooking and pasting strings of citations, fudging and bashing arguments in bad faith has always happened.” The difference now, he observes, is that this new technology, capable of creating entirely non-existent content, makes it easier to spot “sloppy, bad lawyers.” This insight is crucial: the inherent human tendency to lie, fake, and forge texts existed long before we coined terms like “fake news” or developed advanced AI, as the Bibliotheca Fictiva so clearly demonstrates. In 2024, Havens, alongside Christopher Celenza, Dean of Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, led a virtual seminar on the history of misinformation, acknowledging that while the “scale and speed of the change in media that we are undergoing is unprecedented,” past generations have also grappled with moments when “writing seemed unreliable” and the very nature of truth was re-evaluated. In these precarious times, it’s reassuring to recall humanity’s historical resilience in overcoming such challenges. The accumulated wisdom found in libraries, universities, government agencies, and scientific institutions often triumphs. The critical question for our era is whether this expertise can keep pace with the relentless speed and immense scale of deception, and equally important, whether the public will remain vigilant and actively engage in this pursuit of truth. As Celenza wisely concludes, “There’ll be crazy theories, there’ll be people who propound conspiracies, there’ll be mistakes. But hopefully, over time, if we can stick together, we’ll realize that aggregated expertise is still something we should be fighting for.” His words serve as a powerful reminder that while the tools of deception evolve, our collective commitment to knowledge and critical thinking remains our strongest defense.