The Amber Witch

About this book

A young woman is accused of witchcraft in a small Baltic community, and events around her become increasingly sinister. The Amber Witch unfolds as a supposed discovery from the past, written with the conviction of an old record.

Wilhelm Meinhold presented the story as an early modern manuscript, a literary deception that helped make it famous. Witchcraft accusations, desire and fear build towards tragedy, while the archaic narrative voice lends the accusation the apparent authority of an old testimony. Its interest lies partly in the hoax itself, when a nineteenth-century novel managed to masquerade as a piece of recovered history.