Maria Schweidler, die Bernsteinhexe

Maria Schweidler, die Bernsteinhexe, a novel by J. W. Meinhold, published in 1838 in the guise of a 17th-c. chronicle, of which he claimed that he was merely the editor. His mystification of his readers was so successful that he later had difficulty in establishing his authorship. The book is an amplification of his earlier story Die Pfarrerstochter zu Koserow (1826). The virtuous Maria Schweidler, a modern Susannah, repulses the indecent advances of an elder of the village, is accused of witchcraft, tortured, and condemned to be burned at the stake, from which she is rescued in the nick of time by her noble lover, who exposes her persecutors.

The novel was adapted as a play by H. Laube (see also Bernsteinhexe, Die) and enjoyed a considerable success when translated into English in 1844 by Lady Duff-Gordon (née Lucie Austin) as Mary Schweidler, the Amber Witch.