Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating!
Review: After reading the introduction, I was hooked. I knew I'd have to read the whole thing, no matter how tedious and technical it might be. Lucky for me, it was neither. With the exception of a sometimes dull first chapter, it was a lively and entertaining book.Foster's "literary detection" began with his doctoral thesis. He found a poem he thought likely to have been written by Shakespeare. He comparing writing styles, specific words, references and other "internal evidence" to known Shakespearian works. With this, Foster was able to determine that yes, "A Funeral Elegy" was written by the Bard himself. Due to the press he received by this announcement, he was contacted for his opinion on the anonymous author Primary Colors. Using the same methodology, he successfully pinpointed the author as Joe Klein--who denied it vehemently for some time before admitting his authorship. In addition to these highly publicized cases, Foster writes about his un-used work on both Unabomber case and the Talking Points, his angering of some Thomas Poyner fans and the truth behind "Twas the Night Before Christmas." This was an entertaining and enlightening book that I highly recommend. It's certainly the only non-fiction book I've ever stayed up late to read! I give it a 9.5 out of 10.
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Summary: Livingston did write "Twas the Night Before Christmas"
Review: Author Unknown: on the Trail of Anonymous, by Don Foster, 2000. Foster has written an enjoyable book concerning writing attribution, that is, given a document where the author is unknown, he developed the method that may crack the puzzle of who wrote it. In his book writers from Shakespeare to Joe Klein and Monica Lewinsky are considered. I found the book fascinating and difficult to put down, and he took me through his several whodunit stories involving Shakespeare, Joel Klein and primary colors, the UnaBomber, Monica Lewinsky and the "Talking Points", writings falsely attributed to Thomas Pynchon, and who really wrote the doggerel that starts "Twas the Night Before Christmas,..." Foster is annoyed when his method is thought of as a computer program that will crank out attribution from material at hand. Computers were very helpful but more important was his familiarity with text databases that allowed him to find similar language and writing habits. When we write, our reading background greatly influences just what phrases and sentence structure we come up with. Foster's ability to detect greatly depended on his immersion in all sorts of literary works in order for him to proceed and follow fruitful lines of inquiry. In addition, the person's grammar, the way he or she puts words together, idiosyncratic punctuation, and other orthogonal marks can help. Such expertise is not build in a day, and also such immersion apparently put him on the road to burnout. He's going to give it a rest. But what he has done so far, I found fascinating and convincing (especially that Livingston and not Moore wrote "'Twas the Night Before Christmas").
Rating: 
Summary: Literary detections makes good reading
Review: Don Foster is the guy who figured out who wrote Primary Colors, the anonymously published novel that satirized Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and for a time had all of Washington wondering who done it. Foster fingered Joe Klein as the culprit using a method he had first applied in his doctoral dissertation to "A Funeral Elegy," a 17th-century poem that was written by a certain "W.S." after the death by homicide of William Peter of Exeter. Foster determined that the W.S. in question was in fact William Shakespeare. Foster's method of attributional detection involves examining the internal evidence of "questioned documents"--the vocabulary, orthography, spelling, and punctuation used by the author--and comparing his findings to the known writings of some finite number of likely suspects. Writers leave their marks on manuscripts unconsciously, Foster explains, as surely as gloveless burglars leave their fingerprints, their identities betrayed in their phrasing and word choice, in the body of authors whose styles they unwittingly emulate, in their commas and ampersands. Foster's Shakespearian bombshell landed him on the front page of the New York Times early in 1996. His celebrity resulted in this mild-mannered English professor being called upon to apply his attributional techniques to a great many other cases, some of them headline-making, in which the authorship of an important document was in question. In his fascinating book Author Unknown Foster discusses six of the cases in which he has been involved, from his investigation of the Unabomber's literary produce after Ted Kaczynski's arrest, to a study of the Talking Points document Monica Lewinsky once handed Linda Tripp, to a debate about who really wrote "The Night Before Christmas." You think the man responsible for jollying up Saint Nick and transforming Christmas into a wretched holiday for the rapacious was Clement Clarke Moore, that birchen-rod-loving Biblical scholar who hated dance and song and noise and all things fun but wasn't above taking credit where it wasn't due? Think again.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting book, but more or less obsolete now
Review: Foster is a good writer and does a good job telling his "detective stories". Unfortunately, in 2002 Foster admitted that the main feather in his cap, his attribution of the "Funeral Elegy" to Shakespeare, was wrong; other Shakespeare scholars had demonstrated that it was almost certainly written by John Ford. Another widely touted "discovery" from this book, that Clement C. Moore plagiarized "A Visit From St. Nicholas", has been subject to fairly convincing counter-arguments by several writers, including Stephen Nissenbaum, that I haven't seen Foster respond to at length. Even before then I thought Foster's case against Moore was weak because most of it seemed to center on the argument that Moore wasn't the right type of personality to write the poem, rather than any strong textual evidence. What next, argue that Dr. Seuss couldn't have written any of the books attributed to him because he never had children? Foster seems like a sincere person, and he has a very innovative methodology, but you have to wonder whether being in the spotlight has led him to pick up some very sloppy research and scholarship habits. This is still a book worth looking at if you happen to find it in a library or bargain table, but make sure you have some grains of salt handy.
Rating: 
Summary: Pettiness undercuts potentially fascinating content
Review: I ordered two copies of this book, hoping to learn more about literary forensics, a science virtually invented by author Don Foster, but found the material tainted by the Foster's own eagerness to even petty scores and take cheap shots.
Granted, the subject is fascinating and Foster's first few chapters regarding his investigation of a newly-discovered work by William Shakespeare and his own investigation of the writings of bomber Ted Kaczynski held my interest. One can even understand Foster's need to defend himself against the professonal assaults that greeted his early work, but as the book continued, Foster became less concerned with facts and increasingly interested in self-aggrandizement and cheap political shots. What started out as a fascinating academic work turned into an overly-long gossip column.
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Summary: Scholarly suspense.
Review: It catches you right at the start when the author is disputed. It reads like a novel bent on making the edge of your seat the only place that you want to be. READ THIS!!
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Summary: Whoops! Foster blows it on Bard....
Review: Oh, no! Foster's most famous case of literary detective work, attributing The Elegy to Shakespeare instead of John Ford, has proved to be a bone-headed mistake that Foster now acknowledges (see "Literary Sleuth Absolves Bard of a Bad Poem" - TheFrontPage
New York Observer, June 24, 2002, Ron Rosenbaum). All the patronizing things Foster says in Author Unknown about people who were so sure he was wrong make him look pretty silly now. Those old fashioned scholars of Renaissance literature were right after all - and the computer maven "Literary Detective" now appears more like Clousseau than Sherlock Holmes. The book is still a fun read, though, and fun for the reader careful not to take the Sleuth's conclusions too seriously.
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Summary: "Quick, Watson, to the manuscript!"
Review: One would think that a book by and about a literary detective would be about as exciting as sitting in a traffic jam waiting for the light to change, but Foster's sharp wit and infectious enthusiasm-- not to mention his perceptive insights-- make this book as invigorating as a fresh pot of coffee as he uncovers the true authorship of various manuscripts. He is also very candid about his doubts and shortcomings; otherwise, he would have come off as just too pompous. The cynic in me wants to think that his methods could be outwitted by a good mimic or computer program, but he's worked out his methodology pretty well-- one can easily see him as a cast member of C.S.I. Maybe now he can identify the real individuals behind the names Shakespeare, Traven, and Junius.
PS: kinda makes you rethink the next item on the review form, doesn't it?
Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking, fun to read.
Review: This was a fun book to read. It gave a general feel for what literary attribution is all about, which is why I got the book, but also kept me interested with its suspenseful storytelling. As some other reviewers have stated, there is perhaps a bit of pettiness as he tells of his vindication from the doubts of others, but as far as I'm concerned, good on 'im. He seems like a mild-mannered fellow, and his persistence in his research against the often ridiculous and aggressive loud-mouths is actually kind of satisfying. Good book. Highly recommend it.
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Summary: A unique perspective of investigation
Review: Vassar College Professor Don Foster is an armchair sleuth who has solved some of history's literary mysteries. In AUTHOR UNKNOWN: ON THE TRAIL OF ANONYMOUS, Professor Foster explains his forensic techniques in solving the real identity of the most prolifically used nom de plume, anonymous. His premise is simple: writing is like DNA or fingerprints, unique to the individual. The book also goes into the more famous cases that Professor Foster has "solved" such as identifying the author of PRIMARY COLORS or proving that Moore is not the author of THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Finally, Professor Foster provides insight into how his literary analysis methodology has helped law enforcement. AUTHOR UNKNOWN: ON THE TRAIL OF ANONYMOUS is an intriguing non-fiction work that will hook readers or writers with its different outlook. In an interesting manner with real world examples from today's headlines, Professor Foster explains his use of modern day science to ferret out the unknown behind writer of letters, books, poems, and the written word in general. This reviewer evaluated Professor Foster's writing style and concludes that his book is well written and very entertaining. Harriet Klausner
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