Based on the author's popular website, Alex Boese's The Museum of Hoaxestakes readers on a tour of hundreds of documented hoaxes, many published here for the first time. You'll read about the curiosities and cons of the most notorious hornswogglers and flimflam men of the nineteenth century; you'll be astounded at the impostors, pretenders, carnies, and tricksters of the twentieth. Learn how Edgar Allan Poe got away with an astonishing literary deception. Or how P. T. Barnum turned hoaxing the public into big business. It's all here, from the origin of April Fools' Day to the Taco Liberty Bell, from Bigfoot to the War of the Worlds to recent Internet hoaxes. There's also a Gullibility Test that challenges readers to answer the question: "Would these hoaxes have fooled YOU?" Written with both humor and historical insight, and complete with photographs and illustrations, The Museum of Hoaxeswill be the gift book of choice for anyone who has ever been duped, deceived, tricked, or trumped . . . or just likes watching the pros in action.

Alex Boese is a graduate student at the University of California at San Diego, where he is completing his doctoral dissertation. He is the creator and curator of www.museumofhoaxes.com, which began in 1997 as research notes for his dissertation. His website has received acclaim from Yahoo!, as well as USA Today and other newspapers around the world.