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Pretending to "have found and edited an obscure manuscript" is quite a common literary device. A few other examples include Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters (Illustrated by Yoshitako Amano, part of ...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/39646 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Pretending to "have found and edited an obscure manuscript" is quite a common literary device. A few other examples include Neil Gaiman's _The Dream Hunters_ (Illustrated by Yoshitako Amano, part of the _Sandman_ series) and William Goldman's _The Princess Bride_. You will note that in all examples, while the pretence is maintained within the body of the text, **the book is credited to the real author**. It's right there, on the cover. Which is to say, it is a game played inside the story, but never crossing over into the world of publishing. You approach a publisher, you present your work as what it really is - your work, using a fun literary device.