(09/22/2008) The Hoax by Italo Svevo. New York. 1930. Harcourt Brace & Company. Translated from the Italian, with an Introduction by Beryl de Zoete. keywords: Literature Translated Italy. 166 pages. First published in Italian as Una burla riuscita, 1929.

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

   This is the first work to be published in America of the great modern Italian writer and friend of James Joyce. Having written for several years in comparative obscurity, Italo Svevo was discovered by James Joyce and brought to the attention of the various French writers and critics. Just as his work was beginning to arouse keen interest in French and Italian literary circles Svevo was killed in a motor accident in 1928. Since his death European critics have done their best to redeem a quarter of a century's indifference. THE HOAX is the last published work of Svevo. The story of a practical joke played on a simpleton of provincial letters, it is deliciously poised between tragedy and comedy. 'In its small way it is really a little masterpiece,' writes V. Sackville-West. 'A book one wants not merely to possess but to adopt,' says the London Nation.

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