Don't Improvise, Just Plagiarize!

A new film called "The Words" tells the story of a blocked writer who finds an old manuscript and passes it off as his own. An appropriate, if not exactly riveting, topic, for plagiarism is much in the air at present.

We were reminded of a story Helen Lawrenson tells in her memoir "Stranger At the Party." While traveling in Europe as a young woman, Lawrenson sent amusing letters to her Aunt Grace. When she returned, she discovered that Aunt Grace had published the letters, calling them "Travel Diary of a Sub-Deb," under her own name.

More fun with words: Philip Roth recently addressed an open letter to Wikipedia, saying that when he informed it that there was an error in its account of Roth's novel "The Human Stain," Wikipedia responded that while the author might be the leading authority on his own work, it required "secondary sources."

Then there was Romain Gary, only writer to win the Prix Goncourt twice--once under that name, once under a nom de plume.

And finally, this story from Graham Greene. Finding that some publication was running a contest for the best imitation of Graham Greene's style, Greene entered the contest under an assumed name. When the judging was done, he came in second.