The House by the Medlar-Tree

by Giovanni Verga, William Dean Howells, Mary A Craig

Overview

Verga (1840-1922) was an Italian realist writer best-known for his depictions of life in his native Sicily. This novel, first published in the original Italian in 1881 as I Malavoglia, is recognized as his masterpiece. It tells the story of a group of fishermen living and working in a small Sicilian village near Catania and is reprinted from an English translation of 1890.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781023420648
Publisher:	Anson Street Press
Publication date:	03/29/2025
Pages:	164
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Giovanni Verga was an Italian realism (verista) writer best known for his descriptions of life in Sicily, particularly the short story and subsequent play Cavalleria rusticana and the novel I Malavoglia (The House by the Medlar Tree). Verga, the first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro, was born into an affluent family in Catania, Sicily. He began writing in his teens and published the historical novel Amore Patria (Love and Homeland) when he was only 16. Although he was technically studying law at the University of Catania, he used money entrusted to him by his father to publish his I carbonari della montagna (The Carbonari of the Mountain) in 1861-1862. In 1920, he was appointed Senator of the Kingdom for life. He died from a cerebral thrombosis in 1922. He was an atheist. In 2022, the official Verga 100 event was started, commemorating the writer's century with a variety of events from Palermo to Milan, including theater, musical performances, cinema, and a book festival. Verga returned to Catania in 1894, living in the same house where he had grown up. This home in Via Sant'Anna #8 in Catania has been converted into an author museum. The Casa-Museo Giovanni Verga is housed on the second floor of an unassuming 18th-century palace. The furnishings were those that existed at the time of his death, including his extensive personal library.

Read an Excerpt

and then he went on saying to Bastianazzo and to his wife: " Didn't I tell you that boy ought to have been born rich, like Padron Cipolla's son, that he might have nothing to do but lie in the sun and scratch himself?" Meanwhile the year was a bad one, and the fish had to be given for tha souls of the dead, now that Christians had taken to eating meat on Friday like so many Turks. Besides, the men who remained at home were not enough to manage the boat, and sometimes they had to take La Locca's Menico, by the day, to help. The King did this way, you see — he took the boys just as they got big enough to earn their living; while they were little, and had to be fed, he left them at home. And there was Men a, too; the girl was seventeen, and the youths began to stop and stare at her as she went into church. So it was necessary to work with hands and feet too to drive that boat, at the house by the medlar-tree. Padron 'Ntoni, therefore, to drive the bark, had arranged with Uncle Crucifix Dumb-bell an affair concerning certain lupins to be bought on credit and sold again at Riposto, where Cousin Cinghia- lenta, the carrier, said there was a boat loading for Trieste. In fact, the lupins were beginning to rot; but they were all that were to be had at Trezza, Coarse flat beans. and that old rascal Dumb-bell knew that the Prov- videnza was eating her head off and doing nothing, so he pretended to be very stupid, indeed. " Eh! too much is it ? Let it alone, then! But I can't take a centime less ! I can't, on my conscience! I must answer for my soul to God! I can't"— and shook his head till it looked in real earnest like a bell without a clapper. This conversation took place atthe door of the church at Ognino, on the first Sunday in September, which was the feast of Our Lady....