Author: Italo Svevo. Title: A Perfect Hoax. Publisher: Alma Classics. Series: Alma Classics 101 Pages. Travelling salesman Enrico Gaia decides to play a trick on the conceited ageing littérateur Mario Samigli: he dupes him into thinking that a representative of a prestigious Viennese publishing house wants to commission a German translation of a long-forgotten novel Samigli had written and published at his own expense forty years ago.