Genius, poet and fraud First published on this website on 24 August 2020 Today is the 250th anniversary of the death of one of the 18th century’s most extraordinary figures, Thomas Chatterton. He was a self-taught genius, a gifted poet, a scurrilous pamphleteer – and a fraud. But there was nothing shabby about Chatterton’s fraud, which was … Continue reading The mischievous genius of Thomas Chatterton