[Emerikol]

3 Nov 22

Beginning in late-October of 1809, New Yorkers held their breath, waiting anxiously for any news of an eminent historian who vanished mysteriously....
In the October 26th edition of the New York Evening Post appeared an advertisement relating the strange news that one Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker had left his hotel one day and hadn't been seen since.
For the next two weeks, the city was abuzz over the mystery. There were many reports of sightings and the government contemplated offering a reward.

On November 6th, another advertisement appeared in the Post by someone claiming to have seen Mr. Knickerbocker near Albany. Then nothing. Ten long days passed, then the Post published yet another advertisement from the landlord of Knickerbocker's hotel saying that, if the old gentleman did not return to pay his bill, the landlord would dispose of his left-behind property, which included "a very curious kind of a written book". But Diedrich Knickerbocker was never seen again.

While the public waited and wondered what had become of the poor old man, the landlord sent the manuscript to the press in order to recoup the money owed him.

When the book - which was a very tongue-in-cheek history of New York - finally went on sale on December 6, 1809 - curiosity made it an immediate best seller.

The problem was that Diedrich Knickerbocker didn't actually exist. He was a creation of the real author of the alleged manuscript, Washington Irving, who himself had placed the advertisements in the New York Post to drive publicity for the release of the book that HE had written. Irving's hoax turned into a huge success.

That's also why so many of his subsequent published stories - including "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle" - carry the subtitle, "Found among the papers of the late Diedrich Knickerbocker."
Even after the hoax was revealed, no one seemed angry at Irving, and all agreed that it had been a masterpiece of a publicity stunt.