Beautiful Deceptions

The art of the early republic abounds in representations of deception: the villains of Gothic novels deceive their victims with visual and acoustic tricks; the ordinary citizens of picaresque novels are hoodwinked by quacks and illiterate but shrewd adventurers; and innocent sentimental heroines fall for their seducers'' eloquently voiced half-truths and lies. Yet, as Philipp Schweighauser points ...