The Marriage Hoax : Famous Impostors by Bram Stoker

Famous Impostors : Hoaxes The Marriage Hoax

by

Bram Stoker

Famous Impostors by Bram Stoker

The Marriage Hoax

Hoaxes are sometimes malicious, and often cruel, as the following instance will show:

A young couple were about to be married in Birmingham when those officiating—it was a Jewish wedding—were startled by the delivery of a telegram from London with the message:

“Stop marriage at once. His wife and children have arrived in London and will come on to Birmingham.”

The bride fainted and the bridegroom was frantically perturbed at thus summarily being provided with a wife and family. But it was useless; the unhappy man had to make the best of his way through an exasperated crowd full of sympathy for the wronged girl.

Inquiry, however, showed her friends that the whole thing was a hoax—possibly worked by some revengeful rival of the man whose happiness had been so unexpectedly deferred.

Famous Impostors

Chapter I. Pretenders
A. Perkin Warbeck
B. The Hidden King
C. Stephan Mali
D. The False Dauphins
E. Princess Olive

Chapter II. Practitioners of Magic
A. Paracelsus
B. Cagliostro
C. Mesmer

Chapter III.
The Wandering Jew

Chapter IV.
John Law

Chapter V. Witchcraft and Clairvoyance
A. Witches
B. Doctor Dee
C. La Voisin
D. Sir Edward Kelley
E. Mother Damnable
F. Matthew Hopkins

Chapter VI.
Arthur Orton (Tichborne claimant)

Chapter VII. Women as Men
A. The Motive for Disguise
B. Hannah Snell
C. La Maupin
D. Mary East

Chapter VIII. Hoaxes, etc.
A. Two London Hoaxes
B. The Cat Hoax
C. The Military Review
D. The Toll-Gate
E. The Marriage Hoax
F. Buried Treasure
G. Dean Swift’s Hoax
H. Hoaxed Burglars
I. Bogus Sausages
J. The Moon Hoax

Chapter IX.
Chevalier d’Eon

Chapter X.
The Bisley Boy