History

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Profiles in Plagiarism: History

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Stephen Ambrose

Orange: High Risk

Churning out popular history books at a rapid pace; Acclaimed as a "one of the leading historians of our time" who wrote "definitive" works on important historical events; Historical consultancy for movies such as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan; Plagiarism scandal which broke in 2002

Dubbed as a "history factory" for the pace at which he could produce his history books, the now deceased Stephen Ambrose's career as a respected historian and author of popular books on important historical events and people took a drubbing when his modes of textual composition were closely analyzed beginning in 2002.

After The Wild Blue was found to contain passages plagiarized from the works of other historians, further discoveries of plagiarism in his other books called into question his reputation as a historical scholar.

That Ambrose could produce texts for popular consumption was never in doubt. But the scholarly community--particularly other historians--gasped and then gawked at the blatent thievery, the sucking of colleagues' "lifeblood" as if he were a textual vampire.

Numerous media outlets publicized the details of Ambrose's plagiaristic misdeeds and the pattern of unacknowledged derivation which characterized the popular historian's modus operandi which included employing his children in the textual composing process.

Ambrose, now deceased, denied the plagiarism charges at the time, but did admit using other's work in an internview with the New York Times: "I am not out there stealing other people's writings. If I am writing up a passage and it is a story I want to tell, and this story fits, and a part of it is from other people's writing, I just type it up that way and put it in a footnote."

Re-use of existing material has a long tradition in historical scholarship. But without question, ex-appropriation of the exact wording formulated by another author requires more than a footnote. Verbatim use of another author's language requires use of little marks of punctuation known in Britian as inverted commas, in France and elsewhere as guillemets (more like little arrows before and after a quote), and in the US as quotation marks.

Conventions for the use of punctuation to indicate verbatim quotation have a lengthy history reaching back to when printing was first introduced in Europe, and extending back even further to the discoursal norms which writers and producers of texts have used since antiquity to indicate their indebtedness to those scholars who have gone before.

Historians who sidestep the conventions involving the use of "quotation marks" to indicate verbatim quotation put themselves at risk of drawing the ire of--and provoking jibes from--those readers who uncover their slipshod scholarship.

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Iris Chang

Works of history addressing the Japanese occupation of China, the experiences of Chinese immigrants in the US, and the development of China's missile program; Organization of Chinese American Women named her National Woman of the Year; "a role model for young Chinese Americans"

Historian Stephen Ambrose said of Iris Chang: "She may be the best young historian we've got, because she understands that to communicate history you've got to tell the story in an interesting way. She uses those vital storytelling rhythms." Chang's abilities as a popular historian were evident from the start in her first book, Thread of the Silkworm, which traced the development of China's missile program through telling the story of Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen.

Chang's second book, The Rape of Nanking, documented the Japanese assualt on the citizens of Nanking during World War II, and her next book, The Chinese in America, chronicled the history of Chinese immigrants in the US.

Described by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Lillian Sing as "a real woman warrior trying to fight injustice", Chang was working on yet another bestseller-in-progress when she took her own life in Los Gatos, California. Also described as "passionate" and "articulate", Chang will be sadly missed both in the US and in the communities of Nanking (C. Burress, "Chinese American Writer found dead in South Bay"). Prior to committing suicide, she had been suffering from severe depression, which some have speculated as being related to her deep emotional involvement in the horrifying details of the war atrocities which she had devoted so much of her life to studying.

It was with Chang's second book that a number of controversial issues and accusations were raised. The Rape of Nanking, although generally acclaimed by the media, was criticized by some experts as exhibiting "simple carelessness, sheer sloppiness, historical inaccuracies, and shameless plagiarism" (T.M. Kelley).

These are quite serious charges to be leveled against an immensely popular historian such as Chang. Yet Timothy M. Kelly states from the outset of his review that he is not interested in making an "attack [on] Chang personally or . . . tak[ing] issue with her politics or agenda." After this statement, Kelly goes on to give a rather thorough documentation of the criticisms leveled against Chang's Rape of Nanking, concluding with constructive suggestions for revision of the work so as to correct the deficiencies.

Kelly clearly takes issues with the overwhelmingly positive and glib endorsements of The Rape of Nanking, disagreeing with these over-rated reviews which are nearly "all long on praise and virtually void of negative remarks." He issues a stern rebuke to such shallow critiques, accusing the mass media of being "incredibly irresponsible" followed by "and they need to be told so."

After taking a deep breath at these bold and frank assessments, readers of Kelly's review will find a clearly organized and thoroughly documented critique of the four main areas with which Kelly takes issue as far as The Rape of Nanking:

1. Careless errors

2. Sloppiness

3. Historical inaccuracies

4. Shameless plagiarism

While reading The Rape of Nanking, Kelly states that it was "[q]uite by accident" that he came across Chang's insufficiently acknowledged derivation from David Bergamini's Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, and he attempts to "demonstrate a clear pattern of wholesale and unacknowledged borrowing" from Bergamini by citing instance after instance of "parallel passages" in the two works.

In Kelly's view, Chang's occasional citation of Bergamini's work does not absolve her of wholesale appropriation of extensive passages from Japan's Imperial Conspiracy, and he ponders whether this might be a strong indication of further mis-use of sources and plagiarism within The Rape of Nanking. He ranks Chang's work as being "merely of rough draft quality" hastily rushed to press in time for the 60th anniversary of the Nanking massacre, and he suggests that a "completely revised edition" is needed to address the work's serious deficiencies.

Other critics, too, have alluded to the questions concerning the "accuracy and balance" of Chang's writings. But they have also highlighted the importance of Chang's works in reminding readers--particularly Chinese American readers--of the historical significance of events such as the Japanese assault on Nanking, provoking renewed calls for redress of grievances and payment of reparations by Japan to the victims of this horrendous episode in Sino-Japanese relations.

Sadly, the passing on of Iris Chang has extinguished any hope for the revisions called for by Kelly in his critique of The Rape of Nanking. The death of this popular Chinese-American author has left behind swirling controversies and troubling questions which remain unanswered. Was Chang's suicide related at all to the accusations of plagiary? For now, it does not seem so. Were her depictions of the Nanking assault completely accurate? Given that plagiary was discovered in Chang's work, might there be further issues of credibility and research integrity which have yet to be discovered?

References

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Donald Cuccioletta

Yellow: Elevated Risk

American history and world events scholarship

Donald Cuccioletta was working at two universities, the University of Quebec, and the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, when another history professor found apparent instances of plagiarism in Cuccioletta's book on L'américanité et les Amériques. Evidently, Cuccioletta lifted passages from Do the Americas Have a Common History, a work authored by Columbia University historian, Lewis Hanke.

As a result of these allegations, Cuccioletta was dismissed from his position at the University of Quebec, and he was also removed a short time later from his position as Interim Director of Plattsburgh's Institute of Quebec Studies. Whether further consequences will result from this plagiarism remain to be seen.

References

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Doris Kearns Goodwin

Red: Severe Risk

History books; various achievements and awards including the Women's Professional Achievement Award, a Radcliffe Award; "Democratic insider" in the presidential administrations of L.B.Johnson and W.J.Clinton, assisting in defense of the latter during the impeachment process(P.C.Hoffer, Past Imperfect); most recently remembered for the great scandal caused by her being one of the many historian-plagiarists increasingly circumventing scholarship norms

Handwritten, schmandwritten! Longhand, schmonghand! Doris Kearns Goodwin's explanation that her longhand notes were to blame for shoddy scholarship just doesn't cut it!

First she accuses another author of plagiarizing portions of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and then she finds out--big surprise!--that she herself is being accused of the very same thing in the very book she accused Joe McGinniss of lifting passages from in 1993.

The allegations were quickly picked up by most major media outlets, and as a result of these allegations Kearns Goodwin was dis-invited from some speaking events, dropped from television programs, and forced to pay a significant sum of money--the exact amount has never been revealed--to the author from whom she appropriated quite extensively, Lynne McTaggert, author of Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times.

The undisclosed financial settlement with McTaggert as well as Goodwin's membership in the liberal academic establishment seem to have exacerbated the difficulties for Goodwin. Particularly, the fact that she was a "Democratic insider" in the presidential administrations of L.B.Johnson and W.J.Clinton, and also the fact that she assisted in the defense of President Clinton during the impeachment process, brought her into the kill-zone for well targeted conservative criticism. There was a definite political aspect of the accusations against this member of the liberal academic elite. Republican politicians even took potshots at their liberal quarry during sessions of the U.S. Congress(P.C.Hoffer, Past Imperfect).

In spite of the plagiarism allegations, Goodwin Kearns has denied that she ever plagiarized ("absolutely" not!), and has continued to do quite well financially with lucrative speaking engagements and book contracts, although the public jibes against her scholarship continue to surface now and then (see reviews of her work at Amazon.com for examples).

Moral--"Let he/she who is without plagiaristic sin . . . "

References

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Kitty Kelley

Yellow: Elevated Risk

Unauthorized biographies of Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan

Known for her biographies detailing the lives of important figures such as Frank Sinatra and Nancy Reagan, Kitty Kelley has been accused of lifting material from another author in writing her book about the "Bush Dynasty".

The passages in question are alleged to have been lifted from Glynn Wilson's article about President Bush's service in the National Guard in Alabama. The article was published in the Southerner Daily News, and Ms. Kelley allegedly lifted passaged directly from this article in writing her book.

Both Kelley and her publisher deny the allegations.

References

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Rashid Khalidi

Ideological extremism and anti-Israeli rhetoric in the university classroom, including--according to student reports--intolerance of student dissent and abuse of power/position

Columbia University's Edward Said Chair of Arab Studies stands accused of plagiarism by Internet bloggers at Solomonia.com and the History News Network. Allegedly, Professor Rashid Khalidi lifted content in the "writing" of an Internet article on the history of Jerusalem ("Jerusalem, A Concise History")posted on the website of the American Committe of Jerusalem, an organization which Khalidi served as President in the past. Today, this organization has been re-named as the American Taskforce on Palestine.

Dialoging bloggers and historians reported that Professor Rashid Khalidi seems to have lifted material for re-use from a previous article by Kamil Jamil el Asali, formerly of the University of Jordan. When asked about this possible instance of plagiarism, Dean Austin Quigley of Columbia seemed to suggest that the plagiarism allegations were of "malicious" intent.

Khalidi's outspoken, anti-Israeli rhetoric is well known, and it was the reason for his being dropped from a program developed to educate New York City public school teachers about the Middle East. His controversial rhetoric is without a doubt responsible for the strong opposition from students and pro-Israel activists, and his rhetoric seems to have also provoked a re-analysis of his scholarship.

For now, the American Committee on Jerusalem has removed the Rashid Khalidi byline from the article in question, replacing it with the more truthful phrase, "Compiled by ACJ from a variety of sources." This is a sign of a textual retreat. With this neat little revision to their web content, both ACJ and Khalidi have distanced themselves from claims to authorship for the article "Jerusalem, A Concise History", and in so doing, they seem to have tacitly admitted the validity of the plagiarism allegations (see the original byline in a web archive of the article).

Oppositional origins of these allegations notwithstanding, a closer investigation would seem to be warranted. As bloggers have noted, this was not a peer-reviewed journal article which has been called into question, and there is a palpable discomfort with how easily plagiarism allegations can be quickly publicized via the Internet "blogosphere".

If plagiarists had their way, the plug would be quickly pulled on such blogging just as quickly as the ACJ byline was revised upon surfacing of the plagiarism allegations against Khalidi. But these bloggers have every right to exist. They aren't going to go away. And the online accusers might even include a few of Khalidi's own colleagues and compatriots--perhaps in the employ of Mossad, perhaps with a personal grudge to settle with Khalidi, or perhaps of the minority pacifist leaning ilk looking for the day when truly peaceful co-existence between Palestinians and Israelis will arrive.

References

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Joe McGinniss

Green: Low Risk

Nonfiction writing

When Doris Kearns Goodwin accused Joe McGinniss of borrowing too much from her work on The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, little did she realize that she would face accusations of plagiarism relating to this very same book.

The allegations against McGinniss seem to have had little effect on his career as a writer and they pale in comparison to the fallout surrounding the Kearns Goodwin case.

References

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Stephen
B. Oates

Biographies of important American figures; Fighting back feistily, creatively and resourcefully against a well-organized plagiarism inquisition

The case of plagiarism involving Stephen B. Oates marks an important turning point in the war on plagiarism, for it was this case that marked the first use of a "plagiarism machine" being used in 1993 to detect word-for-word language lifting by an author, the results capturing the attention of the public and professional communities alike.

Since this first application of computing technology as a plagiarism-detection aid, the software used for such detection of similar strings of text has become widespread, spawning a new industry which capitalized on the power of digital processing to expose academic cheats.

Venture startups such as Integriguard, Glatt Plagiarism Detection Services, Turnitin, MyDropBox, EVE (Essay Verification Engine), and so on, have ushered in a new era of academic invigilation of the writing process for students and professionals.

For Stephen B. Oates, the software program written by W.W. Stewart marked another stage of a nightmare adjudication process investigating his alleged plagiarism and misuse of sources in his biographies of Abraham Lincoln, William Faulkner, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Working from their NIH office with their "plagiarism machine", Feder and Stewart scanned the text from Oates' biography on Abraham Lincoln to begin with, finding multiple instances of unattributed (i.e. no quotation marks used), word for word copying from the source texts used by Oates.

As Feder and Stewart have observed, mere side-by-side passages of parallel texts still require human judgement to determine whether a charge of plagiarism is valid or not. Indeed, this is still one of the concerns educators have with such "plagiarism detection" technology. A machine or a software program can identify matching chunks of text, but it still requires a human to look at those matches to determine whether there are false matches, whether quotation marks and citations have been incorporated, and whether there might be other explanations for the "intertextuality" which has been identified.

Oates' concern was with the entire process, what he viewed as an "Orwellian" star chamber investigation by the American Historical Association (AHA) which he claimed had no jurisdiction since he was not a member and had thus not participated in the ratification or election processes. He was also concerned that Feder and Stewart, being untrained in the historical writing process, lacked the sufficient expertise needed to evaluate charges of plagiarism which others had raised prior to use of the "plagiarism machine".

He must have felt rather singled out by the use of this new technology on his case alone by two scientists working for the government at NIH. And so, questioning the authority of the government-salaried Feder-Stewart duo to single out a private citizen for calibration of their new "machine", he filed a formal complaint which resulted in the "un-plugging" of this so-called "plagiarism machine" and a re-assignment of Feder and Stewart to a different location. Their work as self-proclaimed "fraud-busters" and plagiarism sleuths on the government's dime came to a halt.

But the controversy continued. More than 10 years after the plagiarism allegations against Oates first surfaced (1990-91), the History News Network featured another round of accusations, recriminations, self-defense, and more of the side-by-side parallel passages of identical text. Oates chose for his title a past-tense reflection, "I Stood Accused of Plagiarism", as an introduction to his "Nightmare Tale of Ruthless Accusers, A Misused 'Plagiarism Machine,' An Orwellian Star Chamber, an Unscrupulous Verdict, and Hopeless Confusion About Definitions" (2002).

Feder and Stewart responded with examples of language lifting in Oates' books, observing that Oates chose to defend himself with the "permissive standards" of Alexander Lindey (Plagiarism and Originality, 1952) rather than standards such as those of the MLA. The fraudbusting duo do concede in this exchange that "it is not possible to be certain that plagiarism is the explanation for every instance of copying without adequate attribution", but they hold firm to their position with a concluding question: "Oates should say flatly whether he copied the passages that Burlinghame identified, or not. And if not, how does he account for the similarities? Just a coincidence?"

David J. Garrow, in his review of Peter Charles Hoffer's Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud--American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin, references the Oates case, quoting Hoffer's assessment: "[Stephen Oates' challenge] was still an embarrassment to the Professional Division [of the AHA]." A number of years after the Oates plagiarism fiasco, and not necessarily as a direct result of this particular case of alleged plagiarism, the AHA decided in 2003 to abstain from any further involvement in questions of plagiarism or professional misconduct by historians, a "retreat from professional responsibility" in the opinion of scholars such as Hoffer.

In "A Heartbreaking Problem of Staggering Proportions" by Richard Wightman Fox, the situatedness of plagiarism allegations within the "culture wars" is explored. As Fox explains, "The news [on plagiarism cases]gets amplified further because it is so useful in the ongoing culture wars."

But Fox seems rather wishy-washy in his explanations, having done a U-turn in his thinking on the Oates case. He basically absolves Oates of the plagiarism allegations in approving of Oates' composing style: "gather[ing] the fragments of past historical writing and forg[ing] them into a new work with a passion and fire all your own. Plagiarism or not, With Malice toward None is an original book." In this same article, Fox states, "I can see the twenty-two historians' implicit argument for not fetishizing quotation marks and for restricting plagiarism to cases in which one author does not credit another author at all" and he makes a convincing case on the importance of using quotations marks to indicate verbatim quotation.

The bottom line is this. Had Stephen B. Oates--or many other scholars in his position--opted to use those small yet vitally important marks of punctuation known as quotation marks, the lengthy controversies and years of bitter recriminations might have been avoided altogether.

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Louis Roberts

Has received various awards and held positions of importance such as the chairmanship of the UA Senate and other positions of leadership

It's somewhat uncomfortable to be the first to publicly draw attention to the plagiary of an important and powerful figure. This discomfort was faced by History Professor John Monfasani at the State University of New York, Albany when he circulated a memo detailing the allegations of plagiary concerning the Chair of the Classics Department, Loius Roberts. As Monfasani noted at the end of his public memo, "I did not ask to be the one to blow the whistle on Louis Roberts at UA, but no one else seems ready to do so."

This seemed to be a case of academicians and administrators being afraid to look behind the stove for fear of discovering yet another plagiarist-cockroach: "While they preach against the sin, many scholars seem wary of confronting the sinners . . . If plagiarists are academe's cockroaches . . . is everyone too scared to look behind the stove?" (Thomas Bartlett and Scott Smallwood in a Chronicle of Higher Education article on academic plagiarists). But even Vice President of SUNY/Albany Carlos Santiago and others knew the plagiarist-cockroach was there for more than a year before Monfasani lent his help in shifting the kitchen stove. "It's the administration that's now on trial" observed Monfasani in regard the the apparent reluctance at SUNY, Albany to confront a plagiarist.


As Monfasani's memo indicates, Roberts' plagiary first came to light in 2000 while Chris Schabel was conducting research at the University of Nicosia, Cyprus, for his book The Synodicum Nicosiense and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus, 1196-1373. It was during the writing of this book that he discovered that Roberts had lifted material from two dated sources: John L. La Monte's "A Register of the Cartulary of the Cathedral of Santa Sophia of Nicosia" Byzantion, 5 (1929-30): 439-522, and Claude Delaval Cobham's Excerpta Cypria. Materials for a History of Cyprus (Cambridge, 1908; reprint New York, 1969).

In all, some 50 pages of Louis Roberts' Sources for the History of Cyprus. Vol. VIII. Latin Texts from the First Century B.C. to the Seventeenth Century A.D. were recycled--including footnotes--from La Monte and Delaval without acknowledgement!

Monfasani strongly hints that there may be further plagiary and scholarly ineptitude waiting to be discovered in Roberts' works: "After Schabel's evidence, everything Roberts has published in this book and elsewhere falls under suspicion. A plagiarist of this magnitude, one may at least hold as an hypothesis, follows a certain modus operandi; and it is merely fortuitous that this particular set of thefts rather than some other or others have come to light."

As anyone who has ever had to deal with cockroaches knows all too well, they are usually more of a problem than just one bug scurrying across the kitchen floor. There may be more of them behind the refrigerator, in the walls, lurking in the cracks and crevices of academia. Stomping on just a few of the big fat ones isn't going to solve the problem. It may be satisfying to hear the soft krunch and splat on the linoleum floor, but only a thorough fumigation and house-cleaning will keep these varmints from coming back.

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Benson Tong

Yellow: Elevated Risk

Research on Chinese-American histories

Being rejected for tenure is one of the most dangerous consequences which an up and coming academic might face for plagiarism of another scholar's work.

This is what seems to have happened to Benson Tong, although he continues to publish books and edited anthologies at a fairly rapid pace judging what he has put out since plagiarism allegations put a dent in things for him at Wichita State.

It was Judy Tzu-Chun Wu who discovered that Professor Tong had lifted sections of her dissertation--this appropriation was cited, but such citations, in Ms. Wu's view, did not justify the paraphrased and slightly altered versions of her original dissertation which Tong had exappropriated for his own use.

Wu pursued her case, writing letters of complaint and documenting her allegations, which Tong rejects to this day. Tong's book is still on the market . . . along with more recent works on Chinese-Americans which he continues to publish.

Update: The latest versions of The Human Tradition in the American West now contain references to Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and to the AHA findings of plagiarism ("A Plagiarized Writer Speaks Out About Her Case" Chronicle of Higher Education).

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H.G. Wells

Red: Severe Risk

Science fiction, Social Activism, Sexual Misadventures

Sexual freedom, social progress, scandal, and science fiction. These themes characterize the life and career of H.G. Wells, a man heralded as a visionary, a social prophet whose writings at the latter end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century infused readers with visions of peace and progress.

His pamphlet The War That Will End War, optimistically encouraged the world with the hope that the Great War (World War I) would be the last war. Of course, this hope was not realized, yet he lent a powerful idea to a war-torn world in the first decades of the 1900s. His science fiction captivated readers with well-told stories which explored the influence of technology on society. And a highly successful historical work entitled The Outline of History brought financial independence and made Wells’ fortune. Yet this stroke of good fortune for Wells left unspoken his debt to an unacknowledged feminist author whose work he had so unscrupulously plagiarized.

Florence Deeks pursued her legal case through the Canadian and British legal systems, yet she found herself up against a male-dominated establishment which had little sympathy toward the injustices for which she sought remedy. And although the courts passed down a verdict of “not guilty” in the case of Deeks vs. H.G. Wells (and his publisher), modern scholarship has determined otherwise—with quite solid evidence on which to base a verdict of “guilty”.

A. B. McKillop of Carleton University conducted a thorough investigation of the charge that Wells had plagiarized from this amateur historian named Florence Deeks. McKillop’s findings are presented in an award-winning book, The Spinster and the Prophet: H.G. Wells, Florence Deeks, and the Case of the Plagiarized Text (2000). McKillop leaves no stone unturned to get at the facts of the case, and he presents a very plausible account of exactly how Deeks’ manuscript found its way from the Macmillan publishing house in Canada to H.G. Wells in Great Britain.

Upon realizing that her manuscript had been plagiarized by Wells, Deeks set out to put a case together for seeking damages through the court system in the amount of $500,000, a significant amount of money in her time. She went through Wells’ Outline and her own ‘Web’ with an amazing determination to get to the bottom of the matter. Line by line, word by word she sifted through the texts for the evidence needed to make a solid case. Evidence abounded. Although there were no lengthy portions which had been copied word-for-word, her entire outline had been copied and minimally paraphrased by Wells. There were congruencies of words and phrases throughout. And quite significantly, there were mistakes made in Wells’ book which had been carried over from Deeks’ manuscript.

The phraseology was so similar, there was close paraphrase throughout, and even the mistakes in referencing and omission of important historical items were the same between the two texts! For example, in a minor bit of lax citation on her part, Deeks had neglected to reference the author Duruy in writing on the Phoenecians, and so also had Wells. She documented “the same unusual features, the same order of details, the same original language, and the same original mistakes as in ‘The Web.’”

Under normal circumstances it would be reasonable to concede that separate authors might have written similar words about the same topic. But in comparing the two texts it becomes apparent that these are a very abnormal set of circumstances, particularly when one begins to analyze the mistakes which both Deeks and Wells make in the citation of their sources. While it might be conceded that authors could pen similar wording completely independently of each other, it is highly unlikely that they would yet further make the same mistakes in their research and writing. Yet this is exactly what one finds in Deek’s ‘Web’ and Wells’ Outline of History.

Another kind of mistake had to do with Deeks’ use of terminology not in current use by historians, such as the word “aristocratic.” Wells repeated this mistake, calling a Roman general “aristocratic” rather than the more conventional “patrician”. Another mistake was a factual error, Deeks’ incorrect date for the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. She gave the date as 800 A.D. when it should have been 962 A.D. Wells made the same mistake.

The same mistakes, the same minimal paraphrase of Deeks’ work, and the same general sequence of topical material continued throughout The Outline of History. Deeks compiled hundreds and hundreds of these “verbal similarities” and examples of mistakes which mysteriously appeared in Wells’ Outline. These were no coincidences, but a deliberate result of direct copying and paraphrasing of Deeks’ work.

With this conclusion, expert opinion was in agreement.

And there were other authors as well who spoke up to voice concerns that Wells had also plagiarized their works. These sorts of similarities between works by Wells and other authors seem to crop up in the literature without provoking too much serious consideration on a possible pattern of unacknowledged borrowing in Wells’ works.

Ingvald Racknem made quite specific allegations that Wells had borrowed from authors such as Poe, Swift, Kipling, de Maupassant, Flammarion, Gourmont, and Stevenson, but this seems to be the most serious discussion of plagiarism by Wells in the existing literature other than McKillop’s study.

How disappointing it must have been after these discoveries for Deeks to receive the following response upon attempting to publish a revised version of ‘The Web’ under a new title, “The Highway of History”:

Your book would be subject to comparison with Wells’ Outline of History. For that reason I think you will have difficulty in securing a publisher at the present time.

H.G. Wells’ plagiarism stands as one of the 20th Century’s most blatant instances of personal economic gain as a result of unacknowledged derivation and usurpation of another author's text.

References

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