Fantasy: A Novel

Fantasy: A Novel

The most prominent imaginative writer of the latest generation in Italy is a woman. What little is known of the private life of Matilde Serao adds, as forcibly as what may be divined from the tenour and material of her books, to the impression that every student of literary history must have formed of the difficulties which hem in the intellectual development of an ambitious girl. Without unusual neglect, unusual misfortune, it seems impossible for a woman to arrive at that experience which is essential to the production of work which shall be able to compete with the work of the best men. It is known that the elements of hardship and enforced adventure have not been absent from the career of the distinguished Italian novelist. Madame Serao has learned in the fierce school of privation what she teaches to us with so much beauty and passion in her stories. Matilde Serao was born on the 17th of March 1856, in the little town of Patras, on the western coast of Greece. Her[Pg vi] father was a Neapolitan political exile, her mother a Greek princess, the last survivor of an ancient noble family. I know not under what circumstances she came to the Italian home of her father, but it was probably in 1861 or soon afterwards that the unification of Italy permitted his return. At an early age, however, she seems to have been left without resources. She received a rough education at the Scuola Normale in Naples, and she obtained a small clerkship in the telegraph office at Rome. Literature, however, was the profession she designed to excel in, and she showed herself a realist at once. Her earliest story, if I do not mistake, was that minute picture of the vicissitudes of a post-office which is named Telegrapi dello Stato (State Telegraphs). She worked with extreme energy, she taught herself shorthand, and she presently quitted the post-office to become a reporter and a journalist. To give herself full scope in this new employment, she, as I have been assured, cut short her curly crop of hair, and adopted on occasion male costume. She soon gained a great proficiency in reporting, and advanced to the writing of short sketches and stories for the newspapers. The power and originality of these attempts were acknowledged, and the name of Matilde Serao gradually became one of those which irresistibly attracted public attention. The writer of these lines may be permitted to record the impression which more than ten years ago was made upon him by reading a Neapolitan sketch, signed by that then wholly obscure name, in a chance number of the Roman Fanfulla. The short stories were first collected in a little volume in[Pg vii] 1879. In 1880 Matilde Serao became suddenly famous by the publication of the charming story Fantasia (Fantasy), which is now first presented to an English public. It was followed by a much weaker study of Neapolitan life, Cuore Infermo (A Heart Diseased). In 1881 she published The Life and Adventures of Riccardo Joanna, to which she added a continuation in 1885. It is not possible to enumerate all Madame Seraos successive publications, but the powerful romance La Conquista di Roma (The Conquest of Rome), 1882, must not be omitted. This is a very careful and highly finished study of bureaucratic ambition, admirably characterised. Since then she has written in rapid succession several volumes of collected short stories, dealing with the oddities of Neapolitan life, and a curious novel, The Virtue of Cecchina, 1884. Her latest romances, most of them short, have been Terno Secco (A Dry Third), a very charming episode of Italian life, illustrating the frenzied interest taken in the public lotteries, 1887; Addio Amore (Good-bye Love), 1887; La Granda Fiamma, 1889; and Sogno di una notte destate (A Summer Nights Dream), 1890. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 67143
Author: Serao, Matilde
Release Date: Jan 11, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publisher: William Heinemann
Publication Date: 1891
Publisher Country: United Kingdom

Contributors

Translator: Harland, Henry, 1861-1905, Sylvester, Paul