Mr. G. R. Thompson once summarized my literary style as being that of
“a hoaxer”.  His description of a literary hoax applies perfectly to The Beale Papers:

             “A hoax is usually thought of as an attempt to deceive others about the truth or reality of an event.  But a literary hoax attempts to persuade the reader not merely of the reality of false events but of the reality of false literary intentions or circumstances-that a work is by a certain writer or of a certain age when it is not…”

             In my time, there were few better than myself at deceiving the public by perpetrating a literary hoax.  My April 13, 1844 newspaper report in The Sun, later entitled The Balloon Hoax, had the mob convinced that the Atlantic was crossed in three days by hot air balloon.  In Von Kempelen and His Discovery, I convinced many of the existence of an invention that converted metal into gold.  The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar was viewed by much of the public, particularly within the scientific community, as a factual report of a conversation with a dead man who had been mesmerized prior to dying.  The Journal of Julius Rodman was so convincing that the United States Congress made reference to it as a factual report in an official government study.

            The Beale Papers is merely the best of a long line of hoaxes and deceptions given to the public by myself to challenge and criticize established beliefs, in this case, that gold is more valuable than literature.