Shakespeare's Lost Play

After passing off as genuine what were counterfeit fragments of the scripts of Hamlet and King Lear he claimed were penned by the bard himself, late 18th-century forger William Henry Ireland became foolishly daring. He announced the discovery of a completely unknown Shakespeare drama called Vortigern.

Thrilled by the thought of a new Shakespeare, a renowned theater producer signed on to premier the play at Drury Lane. But when Ireland handed over the text, his game was up. The producer quickly came to suspect that the hackneyed script was written by Ireland himself. Not only did he refuse to bill it as a Shakespeare original, but he planned to stage the play as an April Fool's Day joke—along with a musical farce about the gullibility of an art collector. The play eventually premiered a day late, on April 2, 1796.