Disciplines Literary Studies & Poetry European Literature

The House by the Medlar Tree

by Giovanni Verga (Author), Raymond Rosenthal (Translator), Giovanni Cecchetti (Introduction)
March 1984
First Edition
Paperback
$31.95, £27.00 eBook
$39.95, £34.00
Courses
European Literature Literature in Translation
Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide
Pages: 275
ISBN: 9780520048508
Trim Size: 5.5 x 8.25

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About the Book

Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) is the most important of the Italian Realist School of novelists. This new edition of The House by the Medlar Tree (I Malavoglia) makes the complete English version of his masterpiece available once more. The story of the Malavoglia, a family of poor Sicilian fisherman, is Verga's moving rendering of the theme of mankind's struggle for self-betterment, the dignity of the struggle in the face of poverty and hardship, and the tragedy that the struggle inevitably incurs.

D. H. Lawrence described Vega's work as "Homeric." Rayond Rosenthal's translation of I Malavoglia is the only complete version of this novel in English and conveys Vega's lyrical realism and the flavor of Sicialian village life superbly.

The book is introduced by Giovanni Ceccheti, whose own translations of Verga, Mastro-don Gesualdo and The She-Wolf and Other Stories, are also available from California.

Reviews

"Giovanni Verga is one of the masters of European literature, and his novel The House by the Medlar Tree is a great work. I am very happy to see it reprinted and I hope that many people will read it."—Iriving Howe