April Foolery

The most common theory on the origin of April Fools' Day is that it started in France in 1564 when New Year's Day was changed from April 1st to January 1st by King Charles IX.  "April fools" were the people who continued celebrating the old date.  Others played jokes on them and gave them mock gifts and visits of pretend ceremony.*  But mystery still surrounds the true origins of the day, and there are other theories, which you can read about at this link from Snopes.com, the highly-regarded website for rumor and urban legend research:  April Fools' Day Origins.

In the spirit of fooling, here are some titles on pranksters and hoaxes from our library's collection :

Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World by Kembrew McLeod (New York University Press, 2014):  McLeod, a filmmaker and professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa, profiles notorious pranks from the 1600s on, how they have served as social critique, and how mischief makers continue to entertain, educate, and affect society.  Con artists, newspaper hoaxes, political pranksters, and shobiz tricksters are among the categories of mischief discussed.




Laughter Therapy [sound recording (CD)]: a Comedy Collection for the Chronically Serious (Highbridge Audio, 2013): This audio collection includes several of National Public Radio's April Fools' hoax stories as well as funniest moments from a variety of NPR shows such as Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Fresh Air, and All Things Considered.

Literary Hoaxes: An Eye-opening History of Famous Frauds by Melissa Katsoulis (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009):  Katsoulis discusses many literary hoaxes of varying types and motivation, but the "entrapment hoax" is probably the type most in keeping with April foolery.  Its intent is "to lure a particular academic, publisher, or literary community with a prank text and then reveal ...how clever the hoaxer was to trick them."  Among the entrapment hoaxes discussed are the imaginary novel I, Libertine, created in the mid-1950s by late-night radio DJ Jean Shepherd with help from his listeners, and H.L Mencken's phony history of the American bathtub, which was published in the New York Evening Mail on Dec. 28, 1917.


The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York  by Matthew Goodman (Basic Books, 2008):  A narrative history of the 1835 Sun newspaper's publication of a series of articles revealing life on the moon that included unicorns, beavers that walked upright, and flying man-bats.  Within weeks, the upstart newspaper had become the most widely read paper in the world.



* Sources: 2014 Chase's Calendar of Events (McGraw Hill), p. 198 and American Book of Days (H. W. Wilson, 2000), p. 248.