As I see it, this is the core of your question:
Has this hypothesis been mentioned in the literature before?
The answer is "Yes, it's been thought of". It's such a common proposal, and such an old one that it's mentioned in nearly all apologetic literature/arguments about whether or not He was truly resurrected. A comprehensive list of such content would be far too overwhelming for this forum, but here is a smattering:
And of course, it was mentioned in the Gospels, as Kris noted already. The people at the time thought of it. However, they were silenced because of the fact that Jesus appeared to so many witnesses after the fact. A stolen body just doesn't appear to people alive like that.
From about.com:
A large crowd of more than 500 eyewitnesses saw the risen Jesus Christ
at the same time. The Apostle Paul records this event in 1 Corinthians
15:6. He states that most of these men and women were still alive when
he wrote this letter, about 55 A.D. Undoubtedly they told others about
this miracle. Today, psychologists say it would be impossible for a
large crowd of people to have had the same hallucination at once.
Smaller groups also saw the risen Christ, such as the apostles, and
Cleopas and his companion. They all saw the same thing, and in the
case of the apostles, they touched Jesus and watched him eat food. The
hallucination theory is further debunked because after the ascension
of Jesus into heaven, sightings of him stopped.