During World War II British intelligence invented a man “who never
was”. They created a British officer out of whole cloth, complete with
family, fiance, and service records. They attached this fictitious
personae to a corpse which was carefully washed up on the shores of
Spain. Said officer was a courier carrying plans for the invasion of
Sardinia. The Germans, who were on
the best of terms with “neutral” Spain got a copy of these bogus
invasion plans, swallowed them, and pulled troops away from Sicily to
defend against this fictitious invasion. The Man Who Never Was saved
thousands of lives.
There are those of us who delight in
these little frauds, bringing into paper existence (nowadays electronic
existence) people, places, literary works, and events that never were.
I, myself, am a mere amateur in these matters but I have played the game
from time to time. Here are some home pages for people (?) who never
were.
The
University of Ediacara is a virtual university
created by posters to talk.origins. Yours truly is a “honorary visiting
research militant”, i.e. a trouble making rabble rouser. It’s well worth a
visit.
The Invisible Library
is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the
library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia,
artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books
unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound. Note: This is the second
Invisible library. The first is, ah, invisible.
The Emily Chesley Reading Circle
is dedicated to that remarkable authoress, Emily Chesley (b.1856-d.1948).
Her works include “The Afrikaans of East Nissouri”, a precursor of
post-modernism, and “Brain Beasts of Blenheim Township”, her strongest
“feminist” novel.
A Brief biography of “Calamity” Jane Austin
recounts the main events in the life of authoress and gunfighter,
Calamity Jane Austin. The biography includes a link to an almost complete
bibliography of her
works. There also is a short article on the
Calamity Jane Austin hoax .
For many years Alphonse was my
“gentleman’s gremlin”
in charge of ensuring that there were pytos in my various publications.
Alphonse, alas, has recently retired and now resides in a gremlin’s
retirement home in Lower Oshkosh Falls, Michigan. His post has been
filled by his nephew, Albert, who has ably assisted me in preparing
these pages.
Nathan Childers has been a regular contributor
to my various publications over the years. Childers has been at various
times the poetry editor for the Brookings South Dakota Sheepherder’s
Gazette, staff editor for Biodegradable Press, and the
Editor in chief for Complete Concordance of the word “the” in the
Collected Works Written in the English Language, Abridged.
If there ever was a man who never was, surely it was
Piltdown man, the most famous scientific
hoax of all time. This is the home page for eoanthropus dawsoni.
  
This page was last updated March 3, 2012
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