Ireland, William Henry (1777-1835)

English literary forger. He invented documents concerning Shakespeare and imitated his handwriting and signature. The forgeries were so well executed that they deceived the experts. Encouraged by his success Ireland wrote two plays, Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II, which he ascribed to Shakespeare. The critic Edmund Malone exposed the fraud, which Ireland acknowledged in his Authentic Account 1796 and Confessions 1805.