Lighten up, people! Lee Israel gave New York autograph dealers a wake-up call. In the early 1990s, many of them were so obsessed with what they were doing that they didn't contact people who had known the letter writers to check the authenticity. The letter writers could not talk because they were dead.

Eventually, a California man who had personally known Noel Coward bought one of the "newly discovered" Coward letters and saw through it right away. He alerted the dealer who had sold it to him, that dealer alerted other dealers and one became a cooperating witness ("CW" on the FBI documents) with the FBI.

Lee's sale of a letter written by "Noel Coward" to that particular autograph dealer proved to be her undoing. The other dealers who had fallen hook, line and sinker for Lee Israel's creations must share some of the blame. They got carried away with the idea of looking for dead people to make new comments. By 1990, when Lee started her con game, those witty bon vivant writers were all dead. The moral of Ms. Israel's book is, "Don't become so obsessed with obscure artifacts from dead people you never met. If you do, you will become a sitting duck for a con artist."

The first person to fall hook, line and sinker for the infamous Hitler Diaries in the 1980s was very possibly obsessed with obscure Hitler trivia. The person should have reminded himself or herself that he or she never met Mr. Hitler, who had been deceased for many years.

VE-RY INTERESTING!

I read Israel’s book, and wow is it good. Yes, she did a reprehensible, illegal, immoral thing. She herself never thinks otherwise. I don’t think this book or interviews with Israel glorifies her crime. She pled guilty. She did her time. Her book is a good read, and she is an amazing writer.

Lauren, the difference between what Israel did, and the fictionalized biography you imagine her having written instead, is *intent to deceive*. Why this is not crystal clear to you, I have no idea. If you think "creativity" excuses swindling others and cheapening scholarship, I don't know what to say to you.

HC: dead-on. Kurt, your inability to challenge Israel -- nay, your fawning over her and asking her softball questions only -- were disgusting. "That's what bloggers do"? Yes, because in a way, they've been forced to do the mainstream media's job for them, which *should* be to tell it like it is. It's a pity that the brains behind _Spy_ magazine has become yet another MSM lickspittle.

Why are you bothering to profile a common thief? That's all this twit is, after all.

Oh, and she whines about being called a 'twit'? I can think of much better four and five-letter terms for the self-absorbed, lying criminal.

Let preface this by saying I also find her theft of original documents from an archive abhorrent.

I am fascinated, though, by how labels and money might have changed what she did (minus the stealing) into something laudatory. If she had simply drafted the letters as fiction and assembled them into a fictionalized biography of sorts (like the recent one on Emily Dickenson), she might have been met with critical acclaim. But because she _sold_ the letters as _truth_, she is a criminal. I think Studio 360 covered what she did because it took so much creativity to be successful. She had to actually channel the voice of these different authors successfully enough to fool even an anthologizer.

As an archivist, I was deeply disapointed at the light-hearted, almost fawning treatment you gave to the acknowledged thief and forger Lee Israel, especially concerning her theft of unique materials from the New York Public Library. Most academic and research libraries are highly restrictive in providing access to uncredentialed researchers; NYPL, however, welcomed Israel and respected her as an independent scholar. She repaid the Library by stealing (or "shoe-ing," as she coyly put it) original letters from its collections and then selling them.

It's hard to imagine WNYC giving such admiring coverage of, say, a journalist who blatantly plagiarized or falsified a news story. I hope that in the future, you will show more intelligence in reporting on illegal and unethical behavior.

You treat Lee Israel's admitted theft of manuscripts from library archives as a sort of lark -- a form of literary adventure, but her actions have made it all the more difficult for independent scholars such as myself to gain access to invaluable materials. At work on a biography based entirely on original autograph letters, I am routinely subjected to humiliating and time-consuming searches of my briefcase and my notebooks upon entering and exiting archives -- all made absolutely necessary, according to each archive's staff, because of the flagrantly selfish and self-serving actions of people like Ms. Israel.

Shameless. Since when is it so charming and worthy of attention to defraud and deceive? Lee Israel's crime is appalling and not at all victimless -- think of the dealers, the readers, the people referred to in the letters she invented and finally the writers she "had such fun impersonating." I doubt that Noel Coward who indeed had a "talent to amuse" would be amused by her shenanigans. After all, she didn't do it as a party game or a harmless diversion. She did it to profit herself. I found the tone of the interview complicit. Why give air time to such a thing? Even if her notoriety is rushing her into print for further profit, why is it worthy of the attention of Studio 360? I listen to your program for a larger perspective than this. After all, it is called Studio 360 -- I thought for a reason.

Why is it that committing a crime these days is considered fashionable and lauded as it was on this morning's show? I am sickened by the thought that this woman is getting airtime to publicize her novel about her crimes. There was a time when a person would have felt shame. Not in this world of moral relativism! This is disgusting!

Are you kidding -- giving this woman so much attention on 360? After she raped and pillaged American history by falsifying documents? And your interview was friendly! I am sickened. Have you lost your mind???