Book Wormholes Exposed Thomas Wise

Prominent British book collector and dealer Thomas J. Wise tore pages from rare 17th-century plays in the British Museum Library and used them to complete books he kept or sold as "perfect" copies. During the 1950s, librarians D. F. Foxon and Fannie Ratchford exposed his thefts by matching distinctive woodworm patterns and impressions left by folds and flaws in adjoining pages. Their bibliographic detective work connected leaves in Wise's books to the exact gaps left in the museum's copies.

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