Ern Malley: McAuley and Stewart's Poetry Hoax

In Australia's notable literary hoax, soldiers James McAuley and Harold Stewart created the fictional poet Ernest Malley to submit nonsensical work to Angry Penguins, a modernist magazine. The duo, critical of modernist verse, aimed to test if proponents could distinguish between real and fabricated poetry. Despite the poems being exposed as a hoax, Angry Penguins received acclaim for Malley's work, which eventually gained recognition as excellent Australian literature in the years following the revelation.