Charles Julius Bertram, Britannicarum gentium historiae antiquae scriptores tres (Copenhagen, 1757)
Inside back cover with the bookplate of the historian Edward Gibbon
The aspirational nature of Bertram’s skillful fabrication of the imaginary medieval historian, “Richard of Cirencester,” is perhaps most clearly represented in this book’s handsome frontispiece, where Richard appears in the august company of two of the best-known and respected historians of early Britain, Gildas and Nennius.
This copy is notable for the presence of the bookplate of the historian Edward Gibbon, whose (not unreserved) praise of Richard in his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire helped to cement Bertram’s status in the 19th century as “the cleverest and most successful literary impostor of modern times.” Bertram’s imposture was not fully discredited until well into the 19th century, when the language in the map of his “itinerary” was exposed as anachronistic.