"This book is dedicated to literary forgeries in Europe from the early modern period through the Enlightenment. The organizing principle of the volume is the study of literary and historiographical forgery--in print and manuscripts, not art forgery or counterfeiting--from classical and biblical antiquity to the close of the early modern period. Particular emphasis is paid to the unprecedented proliferation of patriotic mythologies from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment periods, advancing novel claims of ancient authority, genealogical precedence, and historically based religio-political legitimacy in the face of latter-day historical changes within Western culture. Literary Forgery in Early Modern Europe, 1450-1800 is the first in a quarter century to attempt to treat the subject of literary and historiographical forgery comprehensively, as an area of scholarly research in its own right"--