April Fools: 6 Great Literary Pranks in History

For a good joke, you have to be clever. For a great joke to go down in history, you have to be brilliant. Here’s some examples from the past few centuries of writers who went above and beyond in the prank department (in chronological order):

“Isaac Bickerstaff” predicts the future (1709)

Way back in the early 18th century, almanacs were all the rage and John Partridge was particular popular, peppering his with predictions of all sorts of things that never came true. He even predicted a fever would spread throughout London in 1708 (which it never did, of course).

Jonathan Swift (of Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal fame, who clearly already knows his way around the concept of “satire”) took offense to Partridge’s false predictions — as well as his religious views — and decided to fight fire with fire. Under the name “Isaac Bickerstaff,” he published his own almanac, claiming Partridge would die on March 29th at exactly 11 pm, of a “raging fever.”

Partridge of course immediately renounced this claim as false and Bickerstaff as a fraud. But the public waited with bated breath for the death announcement, believing every word was true. So “Bickerstaff” published a elegy on March 29th, claiming that Partridge had indeed died, just a few hours earlier than anticipated.

Partridge on the other hand, was alive and well, and completely pissed. He tried to publish a pamphlet stating he was alive and Bickerstaff was a liar, but “Bickerstaff” recounted with a statement that Partridge was of course dead, because no living man could write the garbage in that almanac of his.

Partridge never found out who was behind the prank. For the next few years he had to contend with “I thought you were dead!” claims, until his actual death in 1714.

The world’s first English language newspaper (1766)

In 1766, five issues of a newspaper named The English Mercurie were donated to the British Museum. Astonishingly, it appeared as if it had been originally published in 1588, with one issue reporting on the Sir Francis Drake’s battle with the Spanish armada.

For almost fifty years, The English Mercurie was cited as the world’s first newspaper, beating out the Mercurius Gallobelgicus by four years.

But then in 1839, Thomas Watts found the original manuscript in the papers of an English historian, Thomas Birch. The issues were annotated with handwritten notes by Birch and his friend (and supposed mastermind behind it) Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke.

Most likely this was never intended to be a hoax on the public, just a literary game between friends. But when you donate your papers to a museum with no explanation, all hell breaks loose.

I, Libertine — or, How to Make a Bestselling Novel without Really Trying (1956)

Jean Shepherd was a super popular radio host in the 1950s (you might recognize him as the writer and narrator of A Christmas Story), and one day decided to go off on bestseller lists. He hated the fact that those lists weren’t about actual sale numbers, but bookstore reports of demand. So he urged his listeners to call their local bookstore and place requests for a novel called I, Libertine, by “Frederick R. Ewing.”

Thanks to Shepherd and his fans, it soon catapulted into the bestseller list. Even though neither the book nor the writer existed.

Publisher Ballantine Books decided to cash in on this and hired writer Theodore Sturgeon to write the “mildly bawdy” novel in 1956. It of course became a real life bestseller.

Jean Shepherd posed as Frederick R. Ewing in the author photo.

Hansel and Gretel: Murderous Siblings (1963)

In 1963, The Truth about Hansel and Gretel  (Die Wahrheit über Hänsel und Gretel) was published in Germany. Georg Ossegg, an archaeologist, claimed the real story was of grown-up brother and sister bakers in the mid-1600s who killed a rival (and accused witch), and stole her secret recipe for lebkuchen — a type of gingerbread.

The book revealed an archaeologist’s discovery of the “witch’s” house, complete with charred skeleton round about where her stove would be. He even found a box containing some baking tools, a few bits of lebkuchen and a half-burnt recipe. There was complete documentation and photos of the house, the archaeologist, and a manuscript detailing the “real” story of Hans and Grete Metzler.

But in early 1964, it was revealed that Hans Traxler, a children’s book writer and cartoonist, had fabricated the entire thing. He even posed as the fictional archaeologist in the photos, with fake beard and all.

(If anyone had been paying attention, they would have realized the book was published on the 100th anniversary of Jacob Grimm’s death.)

The Trashiest Novel in History (1969)

In the 60s, Mike McGrady, a columnist at Newsday, decided that pop culture was beyond vulgar. To prove how terrible things had become, he decided to write the trashiest novel ever written. He asked a couple dozen of his colleagues to each write a chapter — and even had them rewrite if the writing was too good.

Published in 1969, Naked Came the Stranger by “Penelope Ashe” told the story of a woman getting revenge on her cheating husband by sleeping with any and every man she could find.

Of course, it became a best seller. And when Penelope was revealed to be a hoax, sales only increased.

Mike McGrady knew what he was talking about.

Sidd Finch, the fastest fastball who never lived (1985)

On April 1, 1985, Sports Illustrated published an article about a new acquisition to the New York Mets baseball team. Siddhartha “Sidd” Finch was an English orphan raised by Tibetan monks, and even though he could throw 168 miles per hour, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be a baseball player.

The article featured photos of other Met players reacting in pain to Finch’s throws, and a shot of Finch’s own locker (right next to famous hitter Darryl Strawberry):

A week later, Finch announced his retirement and Sports Illustrated apologized to their subscribers (and Mets fans) for the brilliant hoax. Writer George Plimpton had gone above and beyond to devise the tale of fictional Sidd Finch, and smart readers should have noticed the secondary headline:

“He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga—and his future in baseball.”

(If you didn’t catch it either — the first letter of each word spells out Happy April Fools’ Day.)

A couple of years later, Plimpton expanded his article into a full blown novel, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch.

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Hope you all had a laugh-filled day! What are your favorite pranks in history?

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