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Thomas James Wise was well respected among the rare book fanatics of 1930s London, as a consummate collector.

But when Wise began to uncover a frankly surprising amount of valuable first editions in mint condition,

things began to look a little fishy.

Joseph Hone is the author of a new book, The Book Forger, which transports readers

back to a crime caper in the eccentric world of 1930s book collecting. I spoke to Joseph to find out more.

The story that we're discussing today that you cover in your new book, The Book Forger,

takes place in the, I think it's fair to say,

eccentric world of rare book enthusiasts in the 1930s. So can you take us back to this world?

You paint a very vivid picture of it in your book. Yeah. In the early 20th century, people go

wild for rare old books. It's kind of very much tied up in that culture, in the US in particular, of the kind of the robber barons. And they're looking for old world culture to spend their new world money on. You know, people like John Pierpont Morgan, Henry

Huntington are spending vast sums of money to get hold of first editions, Shakespeare playbooks,

but not just old books, new books too. And you're right to say there's a kind of cast of eccentric

characters. There's a brilliant book published at the time called The Anatomy of Bibliomania by a guy called Holbrook Jackson.

And he makes the point that all bibliomaniacs, all bibliophiles, are, when it boils down to it, perverts.

And that's kind of the world that we're in.

And we're in the world here as well, aren't we?

Of the old grand halls of Oxford, the dusty corners of London bookshops,

and this strange world of libraries and the people who inhabit them.

At the centre of this story, we have a rare book collector called Thomas James Wise. Can you introduce us to him? What kind of man was he?

Yes, Thomas Wise. Well, what kind of man you think Thomas Wise is rather depends on the context in which

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