The Amber Witch

The Amber Witch might me called the "Amber Witch Project," not because it's a classic German Gothic novel, but that it was a complete hoax. Set during the Thirty Years' War, the Amber Witch manuscript was supposedly written by the Rev. Abraham Schweidler, a pure and honest man, whose only child Maria might (or might not) be burned at the stake in a heinous plot devised by a dastardly Sheriff. He accuses her of witchcraft and a trial is held (and I shall'nt ruin the ending despite it being faked). Meinhold had written the Amber Witch as a ploy against certain claimants who suggested that the Old and New Testaments were written based on actual historical documents. When it was first published, nearly all German critics believed it to be true. This was further flamed by its English translations, which sparked a whole new set of fans and theorists of the work's authenticity. When Meinhold finally admitted to the hoax, it caused a big stir, and he lashed into the biblical historians with great lavish.