Probably not.
But they had some techniques in common.
Forgery, reusing paper from old documents, building his reputation through blending of fake and real literary works.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/the-book-forger-joseph-hone-review/

Another inspiration might have been William Henry Ireland, who produced a forged Shakespeare play called Vortigern. He too obtained old paper and Elizabethan language. He almost succeeded. His case is actually funny because there were three people who knew what he was doing all along and just wanted to watch the fun.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2024 11:41AM by slskipper.

My impression was that Mark was very taken with deception at a very young age, and soaked up all kinds of influences. He was a compulsive liar, but had learned how to keep his lies in control so he wasn't found out. He got a rush out of doing nasty things like sabotaging other students chemistry lab experiments and notebooks. He practiced telling big lies about his father dying from cancer. He also hit ideas off of several of USU history faculty, like Doug Alder and used AJ Simmonds knowledge of old documents and books as a mentor; although these guys I don't think had any idea Mark was using their knowledge to create very substantial forgeries.