Peter Ackroyd breaks away from conventional and idealistic approaches – whose historical outlook I shall introduce in the course of the present paper – towards originality by appointing the genius of forgeries to the subject of his novel. Chatterton addresses and undermines issues that are seemingly taken for granted for instance, the concept of authenticity, originality and counterfeit, plagiarism, in order to involve the reader into the subtle maze of the quest that is centred around the investigation for the real representation of the life of Thomas Chatterton. This paper aims at examining the legitimacy of the notion of genius in the late 20th century within the framework of Ackroyd's postmodern novel that attempts to recreate the life of a master plagiarist.