This book first gained popular success during the 1880s when a blossoming public awareness followed upon the heels of Victorian expansionism. Coincidental with this came the spread of education amongst the English working classes, eager to discover more of the world around them. Alas, of the hundreds of such travelogues, few survive the test of time. De Amicis' work is a delightful exception to this rule, avoiding the dreary catalogue of topographical description and ignoring Victorian propensity for strict 'educational' value. Perhaps we have the author's Latin temperament to thank for a work brimming with amusing anecdote, as much devoted to gossip as to fact. Here is a work that remains fresh and enlivening despite the passage of years. For this reason, and for the numerous attractive engravings, it is a deserving subject for reprinting this fine facsimile edition.