"I gotta give you a warning: there is no truth about the Dark Tome. If you think I can tell you anything certain about it, well, turn your computer off now and knock yourself in the head for the fool you are. What makes you think we can ever understand something so old?" A special episode featuring recovered tape of the author, Wilbur Gussy, reading his controversial 1999 essay, "The Curious History of the Dark Tome," long thought to be an apocryphal part of internet history. Though its authenticity has been hotly debated in academic and online forums over the ensuing two decades, none can cast doubt how effective it was at creating a lucrative online book business for the AOL user who wrote it. The more cynical online commenters suggest that it was written as a crass commercial publicity stunt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices