Mark Twain's famous hoax articles, such as "Petrified Man" (1862) and "ABloody Massacre near Carson" (1863), are forerunners of a genre - news satire -which blends together social criticism, humour and intentional deception.Unlike the present-day fake news press, represented e.g. by the British satiricalmagazine Private Eye or the American spoof newspaper The Onion, mostof these inaugural forms were not based on actual events. Instead, they createdentirely imaginary situations so as to feed the readers' thirst for shockingsensations while satirising their manias. Interestingly, Twain's made-up