smithsonianlibraries:

To the chronicle of false chronicles we can add The Amber Witch. In the mid 1800s, Author Wilhelm Meinhold claimed to have discovered a 17th century manuscript written by a minister during the Thirty Years’ War. In it, the minister recounts the accusation of witchcraft levied against his daughter by a scorned suitor. Meinhold later revealed it had been an elaborate literary hoax. His skills in forgery and attention to historic detail was so good that many still did not believe it was fictitious.

Speaking of skills, the image of a book cover for The Amber Witch comes via Examples of Bookbinding executed by Robt.Rivière & Son (1920), an exhibition catalog from the Leipzig Exhibition in 1914, just weeks before the outbreak of WWI. The Riviere Bindery (now subsumed into Bayntun-Riviere) was a productive and well known bindery in London for almost a century and works from the bindery can be found in many rare book libraries today. The introduction amounts to a footnote in WWI history, describing the fortunate turn of events that saved the books from destruction.