In search of specific national traditions nineteenth-century artists and scholars did not shy of manipulating texts and objects or even outright manufacturing them. The essays edited by Janos M. Bak, Patrick J. Geary and Gabor Klaniczay explore the various artifacts from outright forgeries to fruits of poetic phantasy, while also discussing the volatile notion of authenticity and the multiple claims for it in the age.

Contributors include: Pavlina Rychterova, Peter Davidhazi, Pertti Anttonen, Laszlo Szoerenyi, Janos M. Bak, Nora Berend, Benedek Lang, Igor P. Medvedev, Dan D.Y. Shapira, Janos Gyoergy Szilagyi, Cristina La Rocca, Giedre Mickunaite, Johan Hegardt and Sandor Radnoti.