Italian Literature

In the summer of 1348, the plague ravages Florence, and ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside, where they entertain themselves with tales of love, death and corruption, featuring a host of colourful characters from lascivious...
By: Giovanni Boccaccio

This is the second of three volumes collecting the complete plays of Luigi Pirandello, one of the foremost playwrights and fiction writers of the twentieth century. This volume contains more masterpieces by the Italian playwright, winner of the 1938...
By: Luigi Pirandello

After her tragical death in December 1938 at the early age of twenty-six, Antonia Pozzi’s poems – which she had been secretly writing for years – were brought to light and became the object of great critical attention, going through several editions...
By: Antonia Pozzi

Describing Dante’s second stage in his arduous journey to redemption, Purgatory features a host of unforgettable scenes and characters, and arguably some of the best poetry to be found in The Divine Comedy . The gloom, torments and evils of Hell...
By: Dante Alighieri

The Vita Nuova , with its unusual blend of prose and poetry, is universally recognized as Dante’s early masterpiece and provides an indispensable prequel to The Divine Comedy . Set in thirteenth-century Florence, part autobiography and part...
By: Dante Alighieri

A remarkable nineteenth-century account of Istanbul – which begins with a dazzling description of the city gradually appearing through the fog as the author’s ship approaches the harbour – Constantinople expertly combines personal anecdote,...
By: Edmondo de Amicis

This is the first of three volumes collecting the complete plays of Luigi Pirandello, one of the foremost playwrights and fiction writers of the twentieth century, and the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. Edited by actor and...
By: Luigi Pirandello

Dante’s best friend and a major exponent of the dolce stil novo , Guido Cavalcanti has had a lasting influence upon Italian poetry and is best known to English readers through the essays, translations and adaptations of Ezra Pound. Born from the...
By: Guido Cavalcanti

Dante’s dramatic journey through the circles of hell in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of some of the greatest sinners who ever walked on earth – is one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the...
By: Dante Alighieri