Maids of Honor Row (Bookhounds)

From London Cameos (A.H. Blake):

This extremely fine row of houses, built in 1724, flanks one side of the green at Richmond, once the old tilting-ground of the palace ... 

J.J. Heidegger, Master of the Revels to the first two Georges, lived and died here in 1749. He was the ugliest man of his age and is caricatured by Hogarth in his print 'Heidegger in a Rage.'   He was said to be the originator of the masked assembly which had great vogue on account of the license it allowed. People are willing to do things when masked which they would never dare to do when they were recognizable ... 

From Wikipedia:

... the functions of Master of the Revels gradually became extended and the office acquired the legal power to censor and control playing across the entire country. This increase in theatrical control coincided with the appearance of permanent adult theatres in London. Every company and traveling troupe had to submit a play manuscript to the Office of the Revels. The master read the manuscript and sometimes even attended rehearsals. Once a play was approved, the master would sign the last page of the manuscript. The licensed manuscript attesting to the Master of the Revels' approval of a play was a treasured item for playing companies. When traveling and taking a play into the country troupes had to carry the licensed copy of the play manuscript. There was a licensing fee charged by the Office of the Revels for the approving of plays. Tylney charged seven shillings per play ... 

From The Book of Days:

The Duke of Montague gave a dinner at the 'Devil Tavern' to several of the nobility and gentry, who were all in the plot, and to which Heidegger was invited. As previously arranged, the bottle was passed round with such celerity, that the Swiss became helplessly intoxicated, and was removed to another room, and placed upon a bed, where he soon fell into a pro-found sleep. A modeller, who was in readiness, then took a mould of his face, from which a wax mask was made. An expert mimic and actor, resembling Heidegger in height and figure, was instructed in the part he had to perform, and a suit of clothes, exactly similar to that worn by the master of the revels on public occasions, being procured, everything was in readiness for the next masquerade.

The eventful evening having arrived, George II, who was in the secret, being present, Heidegger, as soon as his majesty was seated, ordered the orchestra to play God Save the King; but his back was no sooner turned, than his counterfeit commanded the musicians to play Over the Water to Charlie. The mask, the dress, the imitation of voice and attitude, were so perfect, that no one suspected a trick, and all the astonished courtiers, not in the plot, were thrown into a state of stupid consternation. Heidegger hearing the change of music, ran to the music-gallery, stamped and raved at the musicians, accusing them of drunkenness, or of a design to ruin him, while the king and royal party laughed immoderately ... The master of the revels, turning round and seeing his counterpart, stared, staggered, turned pale, and nearly swooned from fright. The joke having gone far enough, the king ordered the counterfeit to unmask; and then Heidegger 's fear turning into rage, he retired to his private apartment, and seating himself in an arm-chair, ordered the lights to be extinguished, vowing he would never conduct another masquerade unless the surreptitiously-obtained mask were immediately broken in his presence. The mask was delivered up, and Hogarth's sketch represents Heidegger in his chair, attended by his porter, carpenter, and candle-snuffer, the obnoxious mask lying at his feet.

From this:

The Bogus Hogarth

The Hounds are asked to authenticate a collection of Hogarth prints that one of their regulars wants to buy.

The alleged collection was compiled by Hogarth contemporary George Steevens and was found at Maids of Honour Row during a clear-out of one of the houses. It's part of a general auction of contents of that house, to be held at the house in a week's time. 

Steevens. a Shakespearean scholar and an ardent bibliophile, is known to have been a collector of Hogarth and to have compiled his etchings and sketches into one of the most complete bound, annotated volumes known to exist. Steeven's library was sold at auction when he died in 1800, and the sale catalogue of the auction is kept at the British Museum.

Study of the catalogue will want a 1-point spend, to get access to the British Library, and shows that there was a collection of Hogarth prints sold at the auction to one William Alderson, a known member of the Phoenix Club, an offshoot and successor to Dashwood's more famous Hellfire Club.  

Alderson is known to have lived at Maids of Honour Row, according to parish records, for a period in the later 1790s. Steevens died in 1800, which is when Alderson is supposed to have acquired his collection. Could Alderson have left his copy at Maids of Honour Row when he decamped to the Americas in 1805, with scandal hot on his heels after an alleged devil-summoning?

The collection itself is a folio-bound collection of prints, annotated by the binder. It is in remarkable condition for its age and seems to have survived the passing centuries without a stain either on its character or pages. 

Close study reveals a curious anomaly. There is a print of Hogarth's Heidegger in a Rage. However, the print in the book does not match the known Hogarth version of that print. In this version, the Heidegger seems fearful rather than outraged, and the mask on the floor isn't the vaguely Punchinello version known to exist in other editions. It's an altogether more sinister version, which someone with Mythos will recognize as resembling the Pallid Mask of Yellow King lore. Assuming the collection is a genuine set of Hogarth with this one curious anomaly, how did this come to pass?

Option One: Fakery. The collection is bogus, planted by a shop rival who wants to lure the regular over to their establishment. They think if they can humiliate the Hounds by getting them to authenticate a fake, the regular will quit the Hounds in disgust and take their money with them. The Heidegger is less a Mythos relic and more evidence of the forger's disturbed mind. The forger has gone one step too close to the mysteries and it is showing up in their work. This could cause problems; funny Hogarths aren't the only thing this forger has managed to bring into the world ...

Option Two: Hellfire Fakery. The Hogarths are real and the Heidegger is an artefact of the period. However, it is not a Hogarth. It was made by Hellfire Club enthusiast William Alderson who deliberately tipped it into the Hogarth collection as a clue to a hidden treasure: his personal copy of the King In Yellow. This isn't the traditional version of the play as it is known to Mythos scholars; the French play was published in 1895, and Alderson was dead long before then. This, according to some scholars, is a translation of the Greek which was the inspiration for the French version. This branch of scholarship has long since been discredited; nobody with sense believes there was a Greek version of the King in Yellow, still less that it was penned by Aristophanes. The idea's absurd. But Alderson clearly believed it ... and Alderson was dead long before 1895, so he might have been onto something ,,, 

Option Three: King Fakery. Technically this isn't a fake. It's completely genuine. It just doesn't belong in this timeline. Can a thing be real if it shouldn't exist in this reality? How did it get here? Why do its pages shimmer in the moonlight? Why does everyone seem to be wearing masks? Who are those curious dancers fluttering just on the edge of perception, and why do they smile so oddly? The answer may lie with the shop regular, whose pursuit of the King In Yellow has led them to see elements of that forbidden piece of literature everywhere they go. It's becoming a problem for everyone, as the regular's obsessions are bleeding out into mundane reality.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!