Donald Wayne Foster raised arguments challenging whether the person traditionally identified as the author of a text was correct. He has pointed to an obscure Beat writer, Tom Hawkins, as the author of the Wanda Tinasky letters, which some had previously speculated to be the work of Thomas Pynchon. Foster also joined a long-running effort by descendants of Henry Livingston Jr. to show that their ancestor, and not Clement Clarke Moore, wrote the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas". Foster provided his account of sleuthing out these and other identifications in his book "Author Unknown" (including the Shakespeare-"Elegy" connection, which he still
Saint Nicholas island was known as "Saint Nicholas Island" and today it is known in Turkish as Gemile Adasi, meaning "Island of Sailors", in reference to Saint Nicholas's traditional role as the patron saint of seafarers. The church was built in the fourth century, around the time of Nicholas's death, and is typical of saints' shrines from that time period. Nicholas was the only major saint associated with that part of Turkey. The church where historians believe he was originally entombed is at the western end of the great processional way. In the mid-600s, Gemile was vulnerable to attack by Arab fleets,