Much fun. Background & info on literary hoaxes spanning over 200 years (though only by virtue of the two examples that come from the 1700s; the rest are from the mid- to late- 1900s).
Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree
One of the stranger hoaxes. Published in 1977, Forrest Carter’s celebrated memoir about a Cherokee orphan who fights racism and struggles to connect with his heritage was later revealed to have been written by a white Ku Klux Klan member named Asa Carter. (In more recent reprints, The Education of Little Tree was labeled “fiction.”) Carter had previously worked for Alabama Governor George Wallace, penning his infamous inauguration speech, in which Wallace vowed: “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw a line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say: segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”
(via CBC Arts & Entertainment: “Writing Wrongs,” by Rachel Giese [Jan 12, 2006])