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A <b>false document</b> is a literary (or artistic) device which attempts to create in the reader (viewer, audience, etc) a sense of authenticity beyond the normal and expected suspension of disbelief. That is, it wants to fool the audience briefly into thinking that what is being presented is actually a fact.

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It seems to grow out of the [[epistolary novel]] but has more in common with the newspaper serial from which it draws most of its technique. The conceit is most commonly used where a heightened sense of authenticity is required for the desired effect of the story to be maintained. Blurring the line of reality and fiction is an important component or horror, mystery, 
[[Detective fiction|detective]] or fantasy narratives because they wish to engender in a reader a sense of wonder, and of danger, both of which need to feel more present then a typical narrative form would allow. For this reason, false documentary techniques have been in use for at least as long as these literary genres have been around. <I>[[Frankenstein]]</i> draws heavily on a forged document feel, as does <I>[[Dracula]]</i>, <I>Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</i> and many of the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.
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  [[Vladimir Nabokov|Vladimir Nabokov's]] [[Pale Fire]] is a particularly elaborate variation.  
 
<b>False Documents in Art</b>

Orson Welles' [[F for Fake]] is a prime example of a film which is both about falsification (art forgery and the journalism surrounding art forgery) as well as having falsified moments within the film. The movie follows the exploits of a famous art forger, his biographer [[Clifford Irving]], and the subsequent "fake" biography of [[Howard Hughes]] that Irving tries to publish. The issues of veracity and forgery are explored in the film while a(contracted; show full)

Mostly, however, the technique is employed in more mundane ways that hark back to its nineteenth century origins. Whether or not a particular piece of art is a false document, or is using false documentary techniques in a central way, is of course arguable. Usually, the character and extent of the use is examined. 



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<b>False Documents, Fakery and Forgery</b>

Documentary filmmaking, and other attempts at actual documentation, can wittingly and unwittingly participate in the form as its goals of authenticity are so closely aligned with direct false documentation (that is, in both cases there is an element of authenticity and an element of narrative fudging). In Schwarzenegger's <i>Pumping Iron</i> for example, Arnold talks about how his father died in the months preceding a major body buil(contracted; show full)

What divides an artistic endeavor from a political one or an economic one rests, almost entirely, on the ephemeral issue of intent.

''somebody needs to fix H.G. Wells vs. Orson Welles''

False Documents in Art
* [[Fernando Pessoa]]
* <i>[[Dracula]]</i> by [[Bram Stoker]]
, in addition to letters and diaries, includes recorded dictation, and news stories.  
* <i>F for Fake</i> by [[Orson Welles]]
* <i>[[The War of the Worlds radio broadcast]]</i> by [[Orson Welles]]
* <i>[[Citizen Kane]]</i> by [[Orson Welles]]
* <i>House of Leaves</i> by Mark Danielewski
* <i>[[Lord of the Rings]]</i> by [[JRR Tolkien|J.R.R. Tolkien]]
* The <i>[[Necronomicon]]</i>, created by [[H.P. Lovecraft]]
* <i>Emigrants</i> by [[W. G. Sebald]]
* <i>[[Museum of Jurassic Technology]]</i>
* <i>The White Hotel</i> by [[D.M. Thomas]]
* [[Dungeons and Dragons]] by [[Gary Gygax]]
* <i>Andromeda Strain</i> by [[Michael Crichton]] and the 1971 film.
* Most [[role-playing game]]s
* <i>Memoirs of Hadrian</i> by Maurgeritte Yourcenair

* <i>I, Claudius</i> and <i>Claudius the God</i> by [[Robert Graves]]
* <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> by [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]]
* <i>[[Watchmen]]</i> by [[Alan Moore]]
* <i>[[The Princess Bride]]</i> by [[William Goldman]]
* <i>[[Book of Counted Sorrows]]</i> by [[Dean R. Koontz]]
* <i>[[Works of Kilgore Trout]]</i> by [[Kurt Vonnegut]]
* <i>[[Avalon Landing]]</i> by [[Sean Connery]] in the film ''Finding Forrester''
* <i>[[Dune]]</i> by [[Frank Herbert]]
* ''[[The Grasshopper Lies Heavy]]'' "by Hawthorne Abendsen" 

False Documents in Theory
* <&lt;i>Boggs</i> by Lawrence Weschler
* <i>Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder</i> by Lawrence Weschler
* <i>Simulacra and Simulation</i> by Baudrillard

Hoaxes (are they art or not?):
* "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" <br>by Alan Sokal, Spring/Summer 1996 issue of <i>Social Text</i>). See [[Sokal Affair]]
* "The endochronic properties of resublimated thiotimoline", [[Isaac Asimov]].
* [[Ova Prima]]
* [[Salamander letter]]

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<b> Sources: or, False Documents as a field of study</b><p>
False documents were recently the topic of a graduate level seminar in the humanities at the [[University of Michigan]]. The seminar was taught by Professor Eileen Pollack. While the form has existed for at least two  hundred years, focused study is fairly recent.
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see: [[literature]], [[falsification]], [[frame tale]], [[conspiracy theory]], [[urban legend]], [[fictional guidebook]]
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[[talk:False_document|Talk]]
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