Literary Hoaxes: An Eye-Opening History of Famous Frauds

I've just finished reading this for a book club, and was rather disappointed.

The idea of compiling various literary hoaxes is a good one, but the author's approach and organizational style made this book hard not to put down. Each of the vignettes were too short and written in such a way as to have little connection with the others in each section. For example, the Shakespeare hoax by William Ireland was better told in “Banvard's Folly.”

I also hoped that the author might reveal more about her inspiration for writing this book or might tie it up in a conclusion, but no such luck.

I was also bothered by the lack of both an index and a list of references at the end; wouldn't it be appropriate to mention sources in a book about literary hoaxes?