Browse Items (82 total)

  • Collection: Histories, philosophy, biographies, directories, almanacs, annuals, religious, educational, and travel literature

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Although the author's name appears nowhere in this work itself, Sébastien Faure (1858-1942) is listed as the author on p. 3, under "opuscoli di propaganda antireligiosa" of the catalogue at the end of the 1908 Almanacco della Rivoluzione, q.v.,…

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Flamma (b. Cattomosetta, Sicily, 1882; d. New York, 1961) first emigrated to the United States in 1909. During the First World War, he was a volunteer with the American army. He lived in Chicago, where he worked as secretary of the Italian Chamber of…

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While this work calls itself "Volume III," it's really more a reprint of the original work from 13 years before but supplemented by additional names. Clearly, the original was successful enough that Flamma (or Cocce Press) thought it worthwhile to…

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Published only a year after La Guardia was elected mayor of New York City, this work by Flamma is, for the first half, a dyspeptic (or dystopic) meditation on the vagaries of wealth, prosperity and our national illusion during the Depression. Only…

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This earliest of the almanacs (of 6 or 7) in the Collection, published in San Francisco, lacks a book catalogue in the rear that the 1894 one by the same publisher in San Francisco possesses, q.v., but there are ads for bookstores and for newspapers,…

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La prima santa d’America reflects the intense pride in Mother Cabrini that continued to exist nearly thirty years after her death. Although she was not canonized a saint until 1946, the title of this work predicts it with certainty, which is not…

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As the title of this self-published work states, these are transcriptions of talks transmitted by the author to his radio audience in 1937. The talks include mostly anodyne subjects, like "Holy Thursday," "Goodness," "The Book" -  "if good, is your…

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Antonio Margariti (b. Ferruzzano, Reggio Calabria, Italy, 1891 – d. Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, 1981) published these memoirs in 1979 at age 87. This "savage and touching" book (Durante) awakened a vast interest, so much so as to be a finalist for…

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This copy of the celebrated study by Mayor des Planches (b. Turin, 1851; d. Rome, 1920), written during his years in the U.S., is inscribed by the author to a baronessa. During his travels across the U.S., while ambassador to Washington from…

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Inscribed by author, former Italian ambassador to Washington, this is a lecture that he was invited to give in late 1903 at several Chambers of Commerce of the Kingdom to demonstrate the advantage that Italian arts and industries would receive by…

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Nettlau (b. Neuwaldegg [Vienna], 1865; d. Amsterdam, 1944) was a German anarchist - indeed, according to Paul Avrich, Nettlau was the foremost historian of anarchism - who met Malatesta in London, and remained friends for the rest of their lives.…

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This is an unnumbered signed copy ("ogni copia deve portare la firma dell'autore [every copy should carry the signature of the author]").Of Gaspare Nicotri, the New York Times obituary of October 14, 1955, notes that he was an "Italian lawyer,…

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This work, with a cover illustration by W. Vercellino, is a series of philosophical essays, apparently all written by Pietro Novasio, about the “art of life,” with barely a page gone by before the writer invokes Schopenhauer, Emerson, Vico,…

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This comprehensive text on the United States for young Italians was written by the author of the later New York publication, Grammatica-enciclopedia italiana-inglese, q.v. Included is a history of the U.S., discussions on religion, politics, commerce…

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The "secondo migliaio [second thousand]" noted on the cover and title page suggest this was a popular work. Specific issues discussed, after a biography of Lombroso, are "Delinquent Man," "Lombroso and the Man of Genius," "Lombroso and the…

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This is an illustrated and robust history written by a priest of the 21 Franciscan missions in California founded between 1769 and 1823. The publishers are listed at the same location (440 Sansome St. in San Francisco) in the 1915 Writings on…

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This is a young Preziosi, a thoughtful observer of Italians in America, a sociological perhaps even more than an historical work. It is almost unrecognizable from the writer's later pro-fascist and anti-Semitic phase during the Fascist era.

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Taking in this amalgam of columns he wrote for an Italian newspaper a sometimes sympathetic but often condescending view of Italian Americans, not atypical for Italians of his class and that period of time, Prezzolini said they were not a "blend" of…

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Director of the Casa Italiana at Columbia during the fascist era, Prezzolini is mostly remembered as a fascist sympathizer. His views nevertheless remain useful as a measure of the prejudices against Italian Americans by educated Italians of his…

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Introduction by Paolo Bagnoli; this copy has a label stuck on back cover: S.F. Vanni-Publishers & Booksellers, 30 W 12 St., NYC. Author Ragusa was professor of Italian at Columbia University for most of her career, linked to the Casa Italiana at…

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Ribet dedicates the work to her son Joseph, who appears to have been killed in World War II. Her goal is to help those who, in encouraging or allowing their children to become nuns (or priests), pretend that their children are following a "vocation"…

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Inscribed by the author, an actor and writer, to Angelo Antignacci; preface by Pasquale di Biasi.Ricciardi (b. 1871, Sorrento - d. 1961, Naples) acted in several notable movies, including Anthony Adverse (1936), San Francisco (1936), where he played…

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This is the very hard to find first edition of this important, astute observation of the personal and collective experience of Italian immigrants in America in the very early days - Rossi arrived in New York in 1880 - of the mass migration.Rossi (b.…
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