Although Psalmanazar intentionally obscured many details of his early life, it is believed that he was born in southern France, perhaps in Languedoc or Provence, some time between 1679 and 1684.

After learning English, forging a passport, and stealing a pilgrim's cloak and staff from the reliquary of a local church he set off, but he soon found that many people he met were familiar with Ireland and were able to see through his disguise.

Due to a lack of Western knowledge of Japanese cultures, Psalmanazar displayed fictitious customs to convince the public of the authenticity of his background.

Afterwards Innes claimed that he had converted the heathen to Christianity and christened him George Psalmanazar (after the Assyrian king Shalmaneser V, who is referenced in the Bible).

When they reached London, news of the exotic foreigner with bizarre habits spread quickly and Psalmanazar achieved a high level of fame.

His appeal not only derived from his exotic ways, which tapped into a growing domestic interest in travel narratives describing faraway locales, but also played upon the prevailing anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit religious sentiment of early 18th-century Britain.

[6] Building upon this growing interest in his life, Psalmanazar published a book in 1704, An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan.

The "facts" contained in the book are an amalgam of other travel reports, especially influenced by accounts of the Aztec and Inca civilisations in the New World, and by embellished descriptions of Japan.

His efforts in this regard were so convincing that German grammarians included samples of his so-called "Formosan alphabet", in books about language, well into the 19th century, even after his larger imposture had been exposed.

By then, however, he had developed an opium addiction and had become involved in several misguided business ventures, including a failed effort to market decorated fans purported to be from Formosa.

Psalmanazar then participated in the literary milieu of Grub Street, writing pamphlets, editing books and undertaking other low-paid and unglamorous tasks.

In later years Johnson recalled that Psalmanazar had been well known in his neighbourhood as an eccentric but saintly figure, "whereof he was so well known and esteemed, that scarce any person, even children, passed him without showing him signs of respect".

[11] In A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift ridicules Psalmanazar in passing, sardonically citing "the famous Salamanaazor, a Native of the island of Formosa, who came from thence to London, above twenty Years ago," as an eminent proponent of cannibalism.

[12] A novel by Tobias Smollett refers mockingly to "Psalmanazar, who, after having drudged half a century in the literary mill in all the simplicity and abstinence of an Asiatic, subsists on the charity of a few booksellers, just sufficient to keep him from the parish".

[14][15] In his will, completed the previous year, he styled himself a poor, sinful and worthless creature; he directed that his body should be committed to the common burying ground, in the humblest and cheapest manner; and he solemnly declared that his History of Formosa was a base and shameful imposture, a fraud on the public.