George Psalmanazar

George Psalmanazar [Psalmanaazaar] (c. 1679 - May 3, 1763) was an apparently French-born writer who engaged in the pretense of being a native of Formosa, becoming a celebrity in England for a brief time before being ultimately compelled to admit his fraud, thereafter withdrawing from public life to become an editor, essayist, pamphleteer, and writer-for-hire on London's Grub Street.