Lew Vanderpoole

When the George Sand forgeries were exposed in September 1887, the New York Sun reported that Vanderpoole claimed to be 32 years old, and had a "somewhat Irish cast of features."

[8] Vanderpoole claimed French writer George Sand (Amantine Lucile Dupin), who died in 1876, was his aunt or great-aunt.

He was arrested on charges of forgery in September 1887, after selling a story called Princess Nourmahal to Cosmopolitan which he attributed to Sand.

[14] Vanderpoole spent a few days in jail, but was released on the argument that the case needed to be brought in New York City, not Oyster Bay.

[16] In November 1886, an alleged interview that Vanderpoole did with King Ludwig II of Bavaria a few years prior was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine.

The Sun reported that Vanderpoole "has told several publishers that he was on intimate terms with Victor Hugo, George Eliot, Gladstone, Boulanger, Zola, Thomas Carlyle, Rubenstein, Bismarck, Sara Bernhardt, Tennyson, Ruskin, and Thiers.

[22] Vanderpoole was arrested in London in August 1894, after attempting to borrow 1,000 pounds from Charles Russell, the son of the Lord Chief Justice.