Browse Items (84 total)
- Collection: Imaginative literature of the great migration: Fiction, poetry, drama, music, and art in books, magazines, and other works on paper
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Sangue Siciliano: gran romanzo storico dell'epoca della dominazione Borbonica
The Collection's edition is the Italian imprint, containing almost 40 of 110 numbers. But Durante lists a 1910 imprint by the American Premium Book Co. of Passaic, New Jersey, noting that it was issued in "about a hundred installments. The same…
Nostalgici pensieri. [n.p.]: [Cincinnati], [n.d.].
Dedicated by author Novelli to his "consort" Iolanda. This copy is inscribed by Novelli to his friend, Theodore Gantz. The bookseller who sold me this work (or a prior owner) noted that Novelli is from Cincinnati, and lived from 1904-1990. As the…
Rivista d'Italia e d'America [Magazine of Italy and of America]/ Italy-America Review. New York: Casa ed. della "Rivista d'Italia e d'America", 1926. Anno IV, Num. XI (novembre 1926).
This magazine "of Italy and of America," or in English "Italy-America Review," published in Rome, nominally has editorial addresses also in New York and Cordoba, Argentina, this last reflecting the magazine's boast that it covers Italian life in…
Il Rivoluzionario: commedia in 3 atti. New York: Nicoletti Bros. Press, [c. 1910].
Set in the Abbruzzi, this play in three acts was written by a Waldensian pastor, Giovanni Tron, who ministered in East Harlem. As a young man, Norman Thomas took Italian lessons from him. This work is not found in OCLC. The dealer who sold me this…
Lu ciucciu. Poema in dialetto calabrese [The Donkey: poem in Calabrese dialect]. New York: Tipografia Sisca & Sons, 1913.
The only known book-length publication of Alessandro and Marziale Sisca's father, Francesco Sisca, or of the publisher or printer that bore their family name, this poem was a “bilingual” collaboration — Calabrian dialect by the father, and Italian…
L'urto di due mondi: poemetto [The Collision of Two Worlds: a short poem]. [n.p.]: [n.p.], 1938.
Stamped on the title page - bare of any printed text except "L'Urto di due mondi" without "poemetto" much less author Zavattero's name - is "Libreria SOCIALE Italiana, Giuseppe Popolizio E Co., 232 East 123rd ST., New York, N.Y." That the bookstore…
Faville [Sparks]. New York: Italian Book Co. 1922
This sheet music appears to be an import from Naples (though Naples is mentioned specifically only as the source of a recording on disk of the song), and distributed in New York by the Italian Book Company. As I have noted elsewhere, this arrangement…
La leggenda del Piave [The Legend of the Piave]. New York: Italian Book Company, 1918.
Note the copyright by the Italian Book Company both on the cover and at the bottom of the first page of this sheet music: "Copyright 1918 by the Italian Book Co. 145-147 Mulberry Street - New-York| This copy can be imported in the United States only…
Spose di guerra: dramma in un atto [War Brides: drama in one act]. New York: Casa ed. "Il Martello", [1915].
This feminist, anti-war play is the best known work of socialist and suffragette Wentworth (b. 1872 - d. 1942); it's a topic that would have appealed to Carlo Tresca, proprietor of Il Martello and its book publishing arm. Tresca also used the…
Sull'Oceano: romanzo [On the Ocean: a novel] [Facsimile]. New York: Tip. Ed. L. Scarlino, 1921.
Stanco is considered one of the most sophisticated of the Italian-language fiction writers, yet it is impossible to find copies of any of his novels, so I'm happy to have one of his more famous novels (taken from the title of Edmondo De Amicis's…
Anima rerum [The Spirit of Things]. Firenze: G. Barbera, 1924.
This is an earlier work published by Varvaro, a not unimportant Italian poet of the period known as a “poeta modernissimo.” See description of "San Giovannino" for more of the life of this upper class Sicilian immigrant, and how I came to acquire a…
S. Giovannino [Saint Little John]. New York: [n.p.], 1946.
Born in Palermo, Pietro Varvaro (active 1910-1950s) lived in New York in relative obscurity for the latter part of his life, visited often by Italian friends from what remained of the Sicilian nobility, such as the Prince of Niscemi. He was also…
Madre: dramma in 4 atti [Mothers: drama in 4 acts]. Chicago: Italian Labor Publishig [sic] Co, 1931.
First produced in New York on April 19, 1931, at the Civic Repertory Theatre, Madre remains one of the best-known anti-fascist plays written and produced in America by Italians. It is discussed at some length by historian Marcella Bencivenni in…
Petali sull'Onda: poesie [Petals on the Wave: poetry]. Bronx: Euclid Publishing Company, 1948.
See the description of Peccato e luce of Tusiani for his biography.
Peccato e luce [Sin and Light]. New York: The Venetian Press, 1949.
Giuseppe (later, Joseph) Tusiani (b. San Marco in Lamis (Puglia) 1924 - d. New York 2020) was a poet who composed in four languages - Italian, Gargano dialect, Latin and English - an academic teacher of Italian literature, and a translator.…
La "Montanina": Melodrama in 3 atti. New York: [typescript], [1930s].
This libretto was gift to me from the late Gloria Iodice, a friend whose much older husband (Gloria's music teacher) composed the operatic score to this libretto. Though he sometimes also composed music, Picchianti (b. Florence, 1871 - d. New York,…
Il diavolo biondo [The Blond Devil][Facsimile]. New York: Nicoletti Bros Press, 1916.
Stanco’s eloquence and pessimism are amply illustrated in Il diavolo biondo. Martino Marazzi's Voices of Italian America: a History of Early Italian American Literature with a Critical Anthology (Madison, 2004) contains an excerpt from this work in…
La fabbrica parla [The Factory Speaks]. Milano: Milano-Sera Ed., 1950.
Taddei published many works in the U.S. during the fascist era, when it would have been impossible to do so in Italy. Once the war was over, as is the case at the time of publication of this work, Taddei published in his native Italy.Ezio Taddei (b.…
C'è posta per voi, Mr. Brown! [There's Mail for You, Mr. Brown!]. Roma: Ed. Di Cultura Sociale, 1953.
Taddei published many works in the U.S. during the fascist era, when it would have been impossible to do so in Italy. Once the war was over, as is the case at the time of publication of this work, Taddei published in his native Italy.Ezio Taddei (b.…
Alberi e casolari [Trees and Barns]. New York: Edizione in esilio, 1943.
Ezio Taddei (b. Livorno, 1895; d. Rome, 1956) was involved in Italian politics at an early age: at thirteen he was arrested for involvement in a demonstration connected with a nurses’ strike in a Roman hospital. When released from prison, he found…
Il pino e la rufola [The Pine Tree and the Mole]. New York: Edizione in esilio, 1944.
Ezio Taddei (b. Livorno, 1895 - d. Rome, 1956) was involved in Italian politics at an early age: at thirteen he was arrested for involvement in a demonstration connected with a nurses’ strike in a Roman hospital. When released from prison, he found…
Premiata fabbriche di armoniche [Prizewinning Accordion Factory]. Firenze: Borrani - Firenze, 1928.
This trade catalogue contains glorious color illustrations of accordions made at the center of world-wide accordion manufacture for more than 150 years: in Castelfidardo, Italy, where Paolo Soprani had been "since 1863." While the catalogue itself is…
Il Presidente Scoppetta, ovvero La Società della Madonna della Pace [President Scoppetta, or The Society of Our Lady of Peace (from its founding to its dissolution)]. Philadelphia: [n.p.], 1927.
This parody by Seneca (b. Benevento, 1890 - d. Philadelphia, 1952), a professor of languages at the University of Pennsylvania, reflects the bitter laugh of early Italian American comedy. It is filled with a corrupted version of dialect, along with…
Flamma Alitur [The Flame Still Burns]. New York: Nicoletti Bros Press, 1916.
This copy inscribed by author to Il Carroccio. Preface by Luigi Roversi.Salvo (b. Italy, 1889; active in New York through 1948), a freelance journalist, came to the U.S. in 1905. Based in New York, he collaborated in Italian language dailies and…