Editing Found manuscript

{{Short description|Literary technique}}
A '''found manuscript''' (also, '''discovered manuscript<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Sawczuk |first=Tomasz |date=2020 |title=Taking Horror as You Find It: From Found Manuscripts to Found Footage Aesthetics |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=916938 |journal=Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture |language=English |issue=10 |pages=223–235 |doi=10.18778/2083-2931.10.14 |issn=2083-2931 |doi-access=free |archive-date=2025-03-13 |access-date=2025-03-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250313163145/https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=916938 |url-status=live |hdl=11320/12958 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>''', '''imaginary manuscript''',<ref name=":2" /> '''pseudobiblia<ref name=":4">{{cite magazine |last1=De Camp |first1=L. Sprague |date=29 March 1947 |title=The Unwritten Classics |magazine=Saturday Review of Literature |issn=0147-5932 |id={{ProQuest|2152155643}} }}</ref>'''<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Sorensen |first=Leif |date=2010 |title=A Weird Modernist Archive: Pulp Fiction, Pseudobiblia, H. P. Lovecraft |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/406818/summary |journal=Modernism/Modernity |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=501–522 |doi=10.1353/mod.2010.0007 |issn=1080-6601|url-access=subscription }}</ref>) refers to a [[literary trope]] in which a work of literature makes a reference to another work, claimed to exist but in fact being fictitious, and which usually is an important plot element; or claims to be such a work; or claims to be based on it.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Peck |first=Aaron |date=October 9, 2012 |title=Found Manuscripts |url=https://www.bookforum.com/syllabi/found-manuscripts-10281 |access-date=2025-03-13 |website=Bookforum |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Dicuirci |first=Lindsay |date=2021 |title=Found among the Papers: Fictions of Textual Discovery in Early America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27081957 |journal=Early American Literature |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=809–844 |jstor=27081957 |issn=0012-8163}}</ref>

== History ==
[[File:Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.jpg|thumb|An early example of the trope is ''[[Don Quixote]]'', which [[Miguel de Cervantes]] claimed was translated from an Arabic text by the nonexistent [[Cide Hamete Benengeli]].]]
According to [[L. Sprague de Camp]], the earliest known example of a [[fictional book]] would be the [[Book of Thoth]], an alleged holy or magical text from the era of [[Ancient Egypt]], mentioned in a tale from that period ("[[Setne Khamwas and Si-Osire]]").'''<ref name=":4" />''' An early example of the found manuscript trope in the [[modern era]] is [[Miguel de Cervantes]]'s ''[[Don Quixote]]'' (1605–15), as Cervantes claimed in the book that it was significantly translated from an Arabic text by the nonexistent [[Moors|Moorish]] historian [[Cide Hamete Benengeli]].<ref name=":2" /> Subsequently, the trope has been described as particularly common in [[Scottish poetry]]<ref name=":1">{{Citation |last=Baker |first=Timothy C. |title=Authentic Inauthenticity: The Found Manuscript |date=2014 |work=Contemporary Scottish Gothic: Mourning, Authenticity, and Tradition |pages=54–88 |editor-last=Baker |editor-first=Timothy C. |url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137457202_3 |access-date=2025-03-13 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9781137457202_3 |isbn=978-1-137-45720-2 |archive-date=2023-02-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230210001905/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137457202_3 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> and [[Gothic fiction]].<ref name=":0" /> In the former, it has been popularized by [[James Macpherson]], and his ''[[Ossian]]'' poems (a series that debuted in 1761), which he claimed were based on his translation of purported "ancient poetry" in his possession.<ref name=":1" /> In the latter, for example, [[Horace Walpole]]'s 1764 novel ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'', which also established Gothic fiction as a [[genre]], purported to be a translation of an older Italian manuscript from the era of the [[Crusades]].<ref name=":0" /> The process has spread to many other regions and genres, such as [[early American literature]] – for example, the claim that the story is based on allegedly existing documents inherited by the author was present in the anonymous ''[[The Female American]]'' (1767), while [[Nathaniel Hawthorne]] claimed that at least two of his works (''[[The Scarlet Letter]]'' [1850], and ''[[The House of the Seven Gables]]'' [1851]) were based on manuscripts he found in various places.<ref name=":2" /> Another example, in the French language, is the 18th-century novel ''[[The Manuscript Found in Saragossa]]''. 

In the 20th century, references to a large body of fictional literary works (most famously, the ''[[Necronomicon]]'') formed a major part of the [[Cthulhu Mythos]] [[shared universe]], begun by [[H. P. Lovecraft]].<ref name=":5" />

[[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''[[Lolita]]'' is prefaced by a fictitious [[foreword]] from an editor of psychology books, and the novel is presented as the memoir of its protagonist, who writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert.

The trope has been adapted to modern media and is known as [[Found footage (film technique)|found footage]], popularized by the 1999 horror film and [[mockumentary]] ''[[The Blair Witch Project]]'', and video games (such as 2015 ''[[Her Story (video game)|Her Story]]'' or 2017 ''[[Resident Evil 7: Biohazard]]'').<ref name=":0" />

== Analysis ==
The trope has been described as one of the tools of [[metafiction]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Popa |first=Catrinel |date=2021 |title=Lost and Found Relics, Forgeries and Mystifications in 20th Century Historiographic Metafiction |url=https://www.philobiblon.ro/ro/articol/lost-and-found-relics-forgeries-and-mystifications-20th-century-historiographic-metafiction |journal=Philobiblon. Transylvanian Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Humanities |language=ro |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=169–176 |doi=10.26424/philobib.2021.26.2.02 |issn=1224-7448 |doi-access=free |archive-date=2024-09-03 |access-date=2025-03-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240903005450/https://www.philobiblon.ro/ro/articol/lost-and-found-relics-forgeries-and-mystifications-20th-century-historiographic-metafiction |url-status=live }}</ref> It has been used due to public's growing interest in real history, including in rediscovering works of ancient or popular authors [[Lost literary work|thought to be lost or unknown]].<ref name=":2" /> It is used by the authors to produce a [[sense of wonder]] (finding such a work can be a major plot point in a number of works) and a sense that they have discovered a rare, unique treasure.<ref name=":2" /> It is also used to blur the boundary between fiction and reality and enhance the narrative credibility, [[Pseudohistory|portraying fictional events as real]] and distancing the authorship of the text from the original author.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /> The technique of extensive referencing of fictional works has also been discussed in the context of "promoting [[Literary forgery|a literary tradition (of hoaxes)]] while also parodying the academic methodology through which such traditions are consolidated".<ref name=":5" />

While often associated with fiction, the trope is also used in purported works of non-fiction, such as [[Washington Irving]]'s ''[[A History of New York|A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty]]'' (1809). In addition to fiction, the trope has been found in historical chronicles, personal letters, periodical excerpts, and devotional works, among others.<ref name=":2" />

While some works portray themselves in their entirety as based on allegedly real source texts, in others, references to found manuscripts are a major plot point or a passing element of a narrative.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> Some related works are structured around real stories or narrative plots of manuscripts that went missing (this has been described as a trope of "lost manuscript").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Nicola |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tpJ5DwAAQBAJ |title=Portable Prose: The Novel and the Everyday |date=2018-11-09 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4985-6270-6 |editor-last=Cogle |editor-first=Jarrad |pages=145–62 |language=en |chapter=Missing Books |editor-last2=Fischer |editor-first2=N. Cyril |editor-last3=Rofail |editor-first3=Lydia Saleh |editor-last4=Smith |editor-first4=Vanessa}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=146–147}} Related is also the tradition of [[pseudepigrapha]] (a literary use of false attribution, leading to concepts such as [[Pseudo-Aristotle]] and similar).<ref name=":4" />

The trope has been occasionally criticized when the purported new work has been of a recently deceased author, published [[Posthumous work|posthumously]]; in which case it is more likely to be seen as a fraudulent or disrespectful activity.<ref name=":2" />

==See also==
*[[Fictional book]]
*[[Found footage (film technique)]]
*[[Literary forgery]]
*[[List of fake memoirs and journals]]
*[[List of fictional diaries]]
*[[List of metafictional works]]
*[[Metafiction]]
*[[Pseudepigrapha]]
*[[Pseudohistory]]
*[[Story within a story]]
*[[Tall tale]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:False documents| ]]