"This exquisite novel chronicles the decline of an age through the eyes of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina. In the face of Garibaldi, and his unification of Italy, the old aristocracy of Sicily must give way to a new order, or be destroyed in their resistance. The prince recognizes that the only way for his family to prosper in the world to come is to join it and by doing so temper it's revolutionary zeal, whatever indignities it may require of him. As his reckless nephew Tancredi puts it, 'unless we ourselves take a hand now, they'll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.' This book paints a beautiful picture of the end of one world, and the beginning of another."
Publisher Pantheon
Publication Date 2007-11-06
Section Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Brad L. / All Author Suggestions / Sven Birkerts
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780375714795
Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.
Although Giuseppe di Lampedusa had long had the book in mind, he began writing it only in his late fifties; he died at age sixty, soon after the manuscript was rejected as unpublishable. In his introduction, Gioacchino Lanza Tomasi, Lampedusa's nephew, gives us a detailed history of the initial publication and the various editions that followed. And he includes passages Lampedusa wrote for the book that were omitted by the original Italian editors.
Here, finally, is the definitive edition of this brilliant and timeless novel.
(Translated from the Italian by Archibald Colquhoun.)
