Mastro -Don Gesualdo By Giovanni Verga A Novel. Translated by D.H. Lawrence. Verga, who died in 1922, is recognised as one of the greatest of Italian writers of fiction. 'It is a fine full tale, a fine full picture of life, with a bold beauty of its own which Mr. Lawrence must have relished greatly as he translated it' Observer

D. H. Lawrence writes "Giovanni Verga, the Sicilian novelist and playwright, is surely the greatest writer of Italian fiction, after Manzoni." Originally published under the title "Novelle Rusticane," this delightful collection of stories from the Sicily of the 1800's is translated and introduced by Lawrence.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Italy has a long history of short story writing -going back to Boccaccio (d. 1375) - and most of Italy's major writers produced collections of novelle. One of the greatest exponents is Giovanni Verga. The themes of his major novels are to be found in his short stories. Verga embraced verismo, the Italian form of French naturalism, where authorial comment and description is at a minimum. He creates an atmosphere and emotions in his writing which transcend the world of his characters, mainly Sicilian fishermen and peasants, and which give it a lyrical almost epic character. Although Verga writes about a small enclosed world, his work has universal appeal, touching the heart without lecturing or sentimentalising. This volume offers a wider and more varied selection of Verga's prose than has been published in English before and has been taken from four collections published between 1876 and 1887.

Published in 1880, one year before Verga's influential novel The Malavoglias, Life in the Country first marked his stylistic shift towards the verismo school of Italian realism. The collection's centrepiece, `Rustic Honour' (`Cavalleria rusticana') - which was famously adapted into a play by the author before becoming an opera by Mascagni - tells the tale of Turiddu, a poor young man who returns from military service and finds himself embroiled in adultery and a feud with a rival. Also including the well-known stories `She-Wolf' and `Foxfur', A Life in the Country captures, in an objective, non-judgemental prose, the difficult conditions and personal struggles of the peasant class in his native Sicily at the turn of the twentieth century.

On the face of things, Mastro Don Gesualdo is a success. Born a peasant but a man' with an eye for everything going', he becomes one of the richest men in Sicily, marrying an aristocrat with his daughter destined, in time, to wed a duke. But Gesualdo falls foul of the rigid class structure of mid-19th century Sicily. His title Mastro Don, 'Worker Gentleman', is ironic in itself. Peasants and gentry alike resent his extraordinary success. And when the pattern of society is threatened by revolt, Gesualdo is the rebels' first target.

David Lan's new version of Verga's classic play "Mothers like me? We should be burned alive. We should be fed to the pigs, mothers like me." A mother fumes about her daughter's love affair as they hurtle towards tragedy in Verga's passionate Italian drama, first performed in 1894.David Lan's acclaimed new version premiered at the RSC in June 2000.