183:
502:
to Patsy to tell her that his initial opinion was that she was innocent. Not long after that, Foster had also staked his reputation that an internet personality by the name of
Jameson was really John Andrew (John Ramsey's son), and that he felt John Andrew was behind the murder. These two factors came to light later after Foster had changed his mind and decided Patsy had written the note. But by then, the damage was done, essentially rendering useless Foster's 100 page report on the ransom note."
516:
63:
22:
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Foster's analysis. But then it came out that in the Spring of 1997, he had written to Patsy Ramsey at the
Charlevoix, Michigan house to offer his condolences, encouragement and the statement, "I know you are innocent - know it, absolutely and unequivocally. I will stake my personal reputation on it.""
489:
In his 2000 book on the case, Detective Steve Thomas wrote: "I finally heard the magic words while seated in the book-lined office of Don Foster, an
Elizabethan scholar and professor at Vassar College in upstate New York, who just happened to be a hell of a linguistic detective. 'Steve,' said Foster,
501:
And from a book by Andrew Hodges: "Based on his comparison of Patsy's handwriting with the ransom note, Foster told Hunter that Patsy Ramsey had written the letter. But Foster, as it turned out, had badly compromised himself as an expert witness when, early in the case, he had spontaneously written
497:
From a book by FBI profiler John
Douglas, also written in 2000: "In 1998, Foster announced he had determined that Patsy Ramsey had written the ransom note, which sounded pretty compelling coming from such an established expert, and (Detective) Steve Thomas has written that he placed great weight on
456:
connection, which he still supported at the time). The chapters on
Shakespeare and Klein were praised as particularly lively, although the rest of the book was considered less substantial. One reviewer suggested that he spent too much time on the personal character of the writers he analyzed, such
493:
Thomas described Foster's presentation to the
Boulder authorities in March 1998: "'In my opinion, it is not possible that any individual except Patsy Ramsey wrote the ransom note,' he told a special briefing in Boulder, adding that she had been unassisted in writing it. With his sterling academic
473:
with other examples of
Kaczynski's writing. Originally approached by defense attorneys hoping that he might rebut an FBI analysis and the identification of the writing by Kaczynski's brother, Foster ultimately concluded that the evidence of authorship was even stronger than the FBI was claiming.
411:
a few weeks earlier. Klein objected, partly because the theories cited similarities between the book and Klein's writings on racial issues, and he disliked the way his attitude was being characterized. The matter subsided after additional revelations forced Klein to acknowledge that he wrote the
381:
Meanwhile, the publicity surrounding Foster's analytical skills led to him being called upon to track down the authors of various anonymous and pseudonymous texts. Using a mixture of traditional scholarship and computers to perform textual comparisons, Foster looked for unique and unusual usage
357:"belongs hereafter with Shakespeare's poems and plays" and gained international media attention. He supported his identification with computer analysis based on a database he called SHAXICON, used to compare the poem's word choice with that of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The
315:
himself, the dedication presumably having been written by Thorpe. Foster pointed to
Shakespeare's initials being similarly abbreviated in other documents, as well as contemporaneous publications that misspelled authors' initials in the error-filled manuscripts of the time.
494:
reputation and a track record of 152-0 in deciphering anonymous writings, this should have been a thunderbolt of evidence, but the DA's office, without telling us, had already discredited and discarded the professor. His coming to
Boulder was a big waste of time."
650:, Foster tried to match up Hatfill's travels with the postmarks on the anthrax letters, and analyzed old interviews and an unpublished novel by Hatfill about a bioterrorist attack on the United States. Hatfill was identified as a possible culprit.
373:, saying, "No one who cannot rejoice in the discovery of his own mistakes deserves to be called a scholar." Foster said he had not previously analyzed Ford's works closely enough and had erroneously dismissed him as a possibility.
364:
After considerable debate, Foster's theory was eventually rejected by other
Shakespeare scholars. In 2002, Gilles Monsarrat, a translator of Shakespeare into French, published an article arguing that the poem's true author was
279:. He has also applied these techniques in attempting to uncover mysterious authors of some high-profile contemporary texts. As several of these were in the context of criminal investigations, Foster was sometimes labeled a "
345:
Initially Foster did not claim that his identification was definitive, but in 1995 another Shakespeare scholar, Richard Abrams of the University of Southern Maine, published an article strengthening Foster's claims of the
457:
as Klein's alleged "issues" with blacks and women, or Moore's support for slavery. The reviewer still found Foster's arguments about authorship, based on the textual analysis of their writing styles, convincing.
338:, but two experts recommended against publication on the grounds that such evidence was insufficient to establish authorship. Foster was not given their names, following normal practice for
342:, although he later related that he was able to identify the reviewers based on the language of their reports . The book was published instead by the University of Delaware Press in 1989.
319:
While pursuing his research into these initials, Foster came across another work that led him to believe he had identified a previously unknown Shakespeare piece. This was a 1612 poem,
388:. As Foster has pointed out, however, such methods are not definitive: "The notion has been perpetuated that there's a computer program that can identify authorship, and there isn't".
1062:
803:
303:, a dedication appears to "Mr. W.H." as the "onlie begetter" of the sonnets, and the identity of W.H. has aroused much speculation over the years. While in graduate school at the
324:
1067:
415:
In some instances, Foster has raised arguments challenging whether the person traditionally identified as the author of a text was correct. He has pointed to an obscure
307:, Foster formulated a theory that it was a typographical error. Though not the first to articulate the possibility, his article appeared in the Publication of the
908:
654:
published a condensed version of the article in December 2003. The perpetrator of the anthrax attacks turned out to be another government bio-weapons scientist.
767:
361:
was subsequently included in some editions of Shakespeare's complete works, though with qualifications, and it was never considered to be of great quality.
323:, and would have been the first new Shakespeare identification in over a century. Thorpe, the publisher of the sonnets, had registered this work with the
524:
91:
71:
304:
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35:
204:
881:
New York Times, November 19, 1997, by Terry Pristin, "From Sonnets to Ransom Notes; Shakespeare Sleuth Helps Police in Literary Detection
846:
369:, a younger writer whose works Monsarrat had also edited. Foster conceded that Monsarrat had the better case in a post on the SHAKSPER
940:
666:
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patterns. Computer-based statistical techniques for textual analysis had been used by historians before Foster, most notably with the
330:
Relying on the internal evidence of the text, Foster argued that Shakespeare could be the author and submitted a manuscript about the
703:
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On several occasions, Foster has participated in criminal cases that required literary analysis. He was brought into the case of
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in 1987, after he joined the Vassar faculty. Foster argued that the initials were meant to read either "W.S." or "W.SH." for
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673:. The case was settled by Condé Nast in 2007 for an undisclosed amount. Foster ceased any public discussion of the case.
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magazine, following the lead of a former Clinton speechwriter, David Kusnet, who had fingered Klein in the
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490:'I believe I am going to conclude the ransom note was the work of a single individual: Patsy Ramsey.'"
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Pristin, Terry. "From Sonnets to Ransom Notes: Shakespeare Sleuth Helps Police in Literary Detecion".
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settled a defamation lawsuit brought against one of his publications for an undisclosed sum in 2007.
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Liptak, Adam. "Paper Chase: An English professor tells how he tracks down anonymous authors."
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Is the biographer of activist Judi Bari a tool of the right -- or just a skeptical liberal?
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Foster provided his account of sleuthing out these and other identifications in his book
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909:"From Sonnets to Ransom Notes; Shakespeare Sleuth Helps Police in Literary Detection"
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Hertsgaard, Mark. "Too many rumors, too few facts to examine eco-activism case".
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543:. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced
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Foster first achieved notice for addressing the mystery of the dedication of
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Personal account by a Livingston descendant regarding the authorship of
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A Funerall Elegye in memory of the late Vertuous Maister William Peeter
486:'s murder, a case in which a ransom note played a significant role.
353:
s Shakespearean authorship. Foster then claimed publicly that the
619:
Foster returned to advise the FBI during the investigation of the
838:
Roark, Anne C. "Bard's Sonnets A Mystery at Long Last Resolved?"
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letters, which some had previously speculated to be the work of
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from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially
56:
15:
431:. Foster also joined a long-running effort by descendants of
271:. He is known for his work dealing with various issues of
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In 1997, Foster became involved in the investigation of
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In 1996, Foster was one of the people who helped reveal
283:". He has been inactive in this arena, however, since
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Book details linguistic scholar's role in Ramsey case
928:
257:Professor of English at Vassar College in New York
263:(born 1950) is a retired professor of English at
931:JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation
793:A Scholar Recants on His 'Shakespeare' Discovery
722:"Lingua Franca" article: The Bard's Fingerprints
804:Federal anthrax lawsuit pending in White Plains
1063:University of California, Santa Barbara alumni
824:"Possible Shakespeare Poem Found in Library".
8:
669:, seeking $ 10 million in damages, claiming
395:as the author of the "anonymous" bestseller
870:Foster's message conceding Monsarrat's case
50:Learn how and when to remove these messages
327:, giving the author's initials as "W.S.".
94:about living persons that is unsourced or
1022:Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous
717:http://www.jameson245.com/foster_page.htm
696:Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous
657:Hatfill subsequently sued Donald Foster,
607:Learn how and when to remove this message
245:Learn how and when to remove this message
227:Learn how and when to remove this message
165:Learn how and when to remove this message
1068:American academics of English literature
731:Asim, Jabari. "The Syntactical Sleuth".
190:This article includes a list of general
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633:, a virologist who had been labeled a "
401:. Foster named Klein in an article for
377:Literary analysis in contemporary cases
305:University of California, Santa Barbara
957:"Hatfill strikes back in anthrax case"
990:"Hatfill Settles $ 10M Libel Lawsuit"
683:Elegy by W.S.: A Study in Attribution
461:Assistance to criminal investigations
435:to show that their ancestor, and not
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815:Hatfill strikes back in anthrax case
810:(Westchester, NY), October 30, 2006.
927:Thomas, Steve (November 15, 2000).
748: (archived November 1, 2001).
196:it lacks sufficient corresponding
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728: (archived November 1, 2001).
644:. In an October 2003 article for
31:This article has multiple issues.
963:. 4 October 2004. Archived from
623:. He later wrote an article for
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667:The Reader's Digest Association
39:or discuss these issues on the
299:. In the edition published by
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525:biography of a living person
72:biography of a living person
1038:Literary critics of English
629:about his investigation of
545:must be removed immediately
452:(including the Shakespeare-
309:Modern Language Association
99:must be removed immediately
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786:New York Times Book Review
895:A Visit from St. Nicholas
742:"The Bard's Fingerprints"
715:jameson's page on Foster
442:A Visit from St. Nicholas
291:Shakespearean scholarship
935:. St. Martin's Griffin.
791:Niederkorn, William S. "
439:, wrote the famous poem
273:Shakespearean authorship
845:Ryckman, Lisa Levitt. "
761:San Francisco Chronicle
659:Condé Nast Publications
423:, as the author of the
336:Oxford University Press
211:more precise citations.
1058:Vassar College faculty
1053:Shakespearean scholars
539:Please help by adding
86:Please help by adding
988:(February 27, 2007).
768:Standing in her shoes
556:"Donald Wayne Foster"
534:references or sources
297:Shakespeare's sonnets
114:"Donald Wayne Foster"
842:, February 18, 1987.
835:, November 19, 1997.
828:, December 31, 1995.
802:O'Connor, Timothy. "
788:, November 26, 2000.
737:, December 19, 2000.
621:2001 anthrax attacks
437:Clement Clarke Moore
433:Henry Livingston Jr.
92:Contentious material
1020:of Donald Foster's
916:, 19 November 1997.
851:Rocky Mountain News
781:, January 25, 2005.
772:Rocky Mountain News
763:, February 1, 2005.
755:Guthmann, Edward. "
752:, July/August 1998.
734:The Washington Post
652:The Reader's Digest
471:Unabomber manifesto
261:Donald Wayne Foster
913:The New York Times
833:The New York Times
821:, October 4, 2004.
797:The New York Times
635:person of interest
523:This section of a
478:Ramsey murder case
467:Theodore Kaczynski
853:, April 11, 2000.
840:Los Angeles Times
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766:Hartman, Todd. "
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626:Vanity Fair
421:Tom Hawkins
340:peer review
313:Shakespeare
209:introducing
1032:Categories
1001:2019-04-02
971:2016-03-05
858:References
671:defamation
567:newspapers
285:Condé Nast
192:references
155:March 2010
125:newspapers
36:improve it
1018:Chapter 1
961:msnbc.com
597:July 2012
528:does not
393:Joe Klein
367:John Ford
217:June 2010
77:citations
42:talk page
698:(2000).
685:(1989).
419:writer,
404:New York
371:listserv
275:through
269:New York
103:libelous
744:at the
724:at the
581:scholar
530:include
205:improve
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412:book.
194:, but
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819:MSNBC
637:" by
588:JSTOR
574:books
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359:Elegy
355:Elegy
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348:Elegy
332:Elegy
146:JSTOR
132:books
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937:ISBN
700:ISBN
687:ISBN
560:news
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