Focusing particularly on the aesthetics of fraudulence in works by Mérimée, Balzac, Baudelaire, Vidocq, Sand, and others, Scott Carpenter analyzes manifestations of the false in nineteenth-century French literature. Placing literary representations within the context of cultural phenomena such as caricature, political history, and ceremonial events, Carpenter argues that the problem of fraudulence involves a blurring of limits between hitherto discrete categories, challenging Romantic notions of authenticity and sincerity.