Fabricated newspapers, forged newspapers, reprints of newspapers for unknown or for evident reasons have not given the historian serious concern, however much they may have deceived the uncritical.
A still further variant of the forged newspaper is the alleged 'reprint'. This is illustrated in the volume called Reprints of The Times and other early English Newspapers. It is found somewhat frequently in England and in America, and the various parts are also believed to have been sold separately. It comprises eighteen articles, ten of them documents such as the "Declaration of American Independence, "and eight purporting to be reprints of various numbers of The Times, ranging from 1793 to 1821. A careful examination that has been made of these documents shows that they are neither reprints nor facsimiles, but altered copies of original documents, papers purporting to be copies of original newspapers that never existed, and compilations from genuine newspapers but in no sense reprints.[1]
- ↑ " Alleged 'Reprints of The Times and other Early English Newspapers'," Notes and Queries, May 29, 1920, 125, 6: 247.—One set of documents examined bore the imprint "Presented by John Pigott, 'my Tailor,' 116 Cheap side, London, E. C." The set in the Vassar College Library is entitled "Head's Reprints."
These so-called "reprints "were obviously an elaborate advertising plan quite crudely executed but they apparently had wide circulation.
Important information is given in a circular issued by the Kingston, N. Y., Daily Freeman.
H. M. Lydenberg has written an important article on the subject. He gives in it a very useful analytical list of seven issues of four types of reprints. By reference to this article any copy of any reprint can be readily identified.—New York Times Saturday Review of Books, August 27, 1904, p. 580.
Joseph Gavit has noted the curious fact that the Ulster County Gazette of January 4, 1800 was reproduced in J. C. Larkin 's Practical Drapery Cutting published in Minneapolis in 1897. "The reprint varies from all the full sized reprints in that it is entirely reset. The author offers no ex planation for including it."
A recrudescence of interest in the spurious Ulster County Gazette comes periodically . Two corner-stones of churches in Dutchess County, New York, were recently opened, each containing a copy of the paper and giving rise to much local discussion . - In March, 1921, the daily press carried full accounts of the paper, based on an interview with the librarian in charge of the collection of old newspapers in the University of Chicago . He finds the ultimate test of its spuriousness in the quality of the paper used.
Other papers reproduced at intervals are the first number of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and the Vicksburg Daily Citizen of July 2, 1863, originally printed on wall-paper.
