Don Foster is an English professor at Vassar College, a born sleuth and Shakespearean scholar who taught himself to answer the question, "Who WROTE this thing?"

That question often is asked by criminal investigators, attorneys, literary scholars, and the reading public. Using techniques honed on Shakespearean manuscripts, Professor Foster became famous when he named Joe Klein the "anonymous" author of the best selling political novel Primary Colors.

As a result of this unexpected notoriety, Foster was called on to assist in the prosecution of Ted Kaczynski, helping to match Kaczynski's writings with published works by the Unabomber.

The indefatigable Foster follows the trail of "Anonymous," whoever Anonymous turns out to be. His new book describing this convoluted journey is Author Unknown, On the Trail of Anonymous. The book is enjoyably stocked with juicy stories and mysteries unraveled.

The richest of these tales is hidden among the more famous stories. It involves the decades-long controversy over a possible link between novelist Thomas Pynchon and a Mendocino letter writer who called herself Wanda Tinasky.

Foster explains, "In the 1980's, a seemingly insoluble mystery perplexed the denizens of Mendocino County... Who is Wanda Tinasky, and who in hell does she think she is? Wanda wrote scathingly funny critiques of local 'artistes' and politicians, publishing her observations in the same periodicals in which community activists, left and right, agitated, and in which local poets contributed their musings on the eternal verities."

Through four memorable years Wanda Tinasky's published letters entertained and infuriated readers of Bruce Anderson's weekly Anderson Valley Advertiser. The effort to identify the true author became a parlor game at parties and a constant theme of conversation. Wanda's final letter was published in September,1988, after which she mysteriously disappeared from public view.

Two years later, Bruce Anderson decided, loudly and publicly, that Wanda Tinasky HAD to be reclusive author Thomas Pynchon. It was rumored that Pynchon lived here while researching his novel Vineland and that he left the area about the time Tinasky stopped publishing her letters. Aha!

"SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED" ran Anderson's headline in the AVA. True or not, provable or not, it made a great story even more intriguing.

In 1996, former Mendocino resident TR Factor published The Letters of Wanda Tinasky (now out of print) and the idea that Pynchon and Tinasky were the same person became even more widely believed.

Professor Foster recalls that because of his success with Primary Colors "reporters and book editors began calling me about The Letters of Wanda Tinasky . In October (1996) after a 'Who's Wanda?' call from the Washington Post, I finally gave in to my curiosity and wrote to Bruce Anderson, editor of the AVA..."

Years went by while Foster concerned himself with other investigations and earning a living. He was fairly certain Pynchon's style was nothing like that of Wanda Tinasky, but lacked materials needed to identify the true author. In the meantime, he writes, "after six years of a slowly growing Wanda cult... it seemed to me that Wanda would never rest in peace, nor Thomas Pynchon in Manhattan, until the author of the Tinasky letters was truly identified. This however, was easier said than done."

"In August, 1998," Foster writes, "I decided to give it the old college try... and had freakish good luck. It took only a month to track Wanda down."

Exactly HOW Professor Foster worked his various magics is the true subject of his book. Authors leave unmistakable imprints in their writing, and Foster reads these like a cop reads fingerprints.

So listen up, all you Anonymi out there -- Foster is catching up with you. Be certain that you are willing to take credit for what you write. It's getting ever more difficult to hide behind literary anonymity.

Finally, you may be wondering exactly what Foster discovered, and who WAS the real Wanda Tinasky? For the moment, I won't spoil the surprise. More about Foster's work next week, and I'll present his solution then. In the meantime, if you can't wait, Foster's conclusion is summarized at the top of page 219 of Author Unknown .

Aired Friday November 3, 2000 at 8:35 am and Sunday November 5, 2000 at 6:55 pm