Samuel Johnson, the Ossian Fraud, and the Celtic Revival in Great Britain and Ireland

James Macpherson''s famous hoax, publishing his own poems as the writings of the ancient Scots bard Ossian in the 1760s, remains fascinating to scholars as the most successful literary fraud in history. This study presents the fullest investigation of his deception to date, by looking at the controversy from the point of view of Samuel Johnson. Johnson''s dispute with Macpherson was an argument wi...