The art of the hoax

Angry Penguins was a literary ­journal in Adelaide, Australia. In 1944, Max Harris, the editor, received two poems by an unknown writer named Ern Malley. They were accompanied by a letter from Malley’s sister, Ethel, which explained that Ern had recently died at age 25: “It would be a kindness if you would let me know whether you think there is anything in them. I am not a literary person myself.” Harris liked Malley’s work and asked to see more. He received a manuscript of sixteen poems, which so impressed him that he published them all several months later.

Fact, a Sydney tabloid, soon broke the story that the poems were a hoax. There was no Ethel or Ern. The poems had been written by two traditional poets, James McAuley and Harold Stewart, who detested Angry Penguins for its modernism. McAuley and Stewart released a statement explaining that they had dashed...