Wanda Tinasky - Don Foster

Don Foster

The situation changed in 1998 when Shakespeare scholar and "literary detective" Don Foster - who had gained publicity by correctly identifying Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors - fingered an obscure Beat poet and writer, Tom Hawkins, as the author of the letters.

Foster's previous work was based on direct comparisons between unidentified and identified texts, looking for patterns in vocabulary, usage and orthography. Foster's techniques have aroused some controversy, and his results have been mixed.

The Tinasky identification involved more direct detective work, with the crucial step involving computer searches for works written about writers mentioned in the Tinasky letters. Hawkins' name turned up, and Foster then tracked down more information about and writings by Hawkins. Eventually, many minor biographical details appeared which exactly matched the letters: recycled Hawkins poetry was discovered in the letters, and ultimately the very typewriter Hawkins used was found. Unlike the case with Pynchon, where there were both similarities and discrepancies throughout, the identified mismatches between Hawkins and Tinasky were limited to the Tinasky façade, and a small number of "transparent forgeries", as Foster calls them, that had been culled ahead of time.

In 2000, Foster published a popular account in his Author Unknown. It has largely ended academic speculation on Tinasky's identity. Furthermore, several months after Foster's book came out, The Wanda Tinasky Letters page went blank without explanation, and the Letters soon went out of print.