Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Francis Bunbury

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Hoax?

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

An IP editor had added the following comment to the top of the article: WARNING This stub is false, although humorous. It creates a false history for a fictional character. See O. Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest".

I don't know for sure if it is a hoax, but the article's content is difficult to verify and the mention of an "O.F.O.W. Wilde" in the text, plus the unlikely claim at the end about the Keats poem make me suspicious, and I've tagged the article accordingly. --RL0919 (talk) 23:58, 18 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

Well spotted, RL0919 and that IP. "O.F.O.W. Wilde" is Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, and "A. Moncrieff" is a character in The Importance of being Earnest who has an imaginary friend called "Bunbury". Unfortunately the relevant page of the Directory of British Architects 1834-1914 is not visible in Google Books' preview, but I think all the above, plus the lack of anything but WP mirrors in a Google search for "Francis Bunbury" architect is good enough to PROD it as a hoax. JohnCD (talk) 20:37, 19 December 2010 (UTC)Reply

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