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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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…
Poesie di Thomas Fragale [Poems of Thomas Fragale]. Kansas City: Tipografia Mario Porretti, [1929].
Born in 1855, Fragale emigrated from a town near Catanzaro in Calabria in 1892. He wrote poetry while pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Hammondton, NJ, until 1900. The generally patriotic and pro-monarchial tone of his verses separates him from…
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…
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,…
Core 'ngrato: canzone napoletana [Ungrateful Heart: Neapolitan Song]. Milano: Ed. Ricordi, 1947.
Note "versi di R. Cordiferro" in interior; "trascrizione per fisarmonica di Luigi Oreste Anzaghi [transciption for accordion by Luigi Oreste Anzaghi]" noted on outside cover; published by G. Ricordi © 1911, i.e., several decades before this copy,…
Il prisco cavaliere [The Old Horseman]. New York: F. Sparacino; "La Follia di New York," 1924.
This copy inscribed by author to the writer Anna Lannutti in 1933, like La vendetta. This copy lacks covers or a title page. This work tells a story of Italy in 1840s & 1850s. This comic satire — the title is a play on words, as “prisco” means…
Scugnizzo: poemetto napoletano [Street urchin: short Neapolitan poem]. New York: Coccè Press, [1924].
Inscribed to "Al poeta Armando Massa, con sincera e cordiale amici fa'a, con viva ammrazione, Riccardo Cordiferro, N.Y. 21 Giugno 1924."
La vendetta: lirica in versi liberi [Vendetta: lyrics in free verse]. New York: La Follia di New York - Marziale Sisca, 1933.
Inscribed by author, as with the copy of Il prisco cavaliere in the collection, to the "scrittrice [writer] Anna Lannutti, con sincera ammirazione/Riccardo Cordiferro/ 22 gennaio, 1933."Of interest is that Lannutti's verses had just appeared in the…
Ermete Novelli: Conferenza letta la sera del 27 Aprile 1919 alla "Irish Federation Hall" di New York per l'inaugurazione del "Circolo Filodrammatica Ermete Novelli" [Ermete Novelli: lecture read the evening of 27 April 1919 at "Irish Federation Hall" of New York for the opening of the "Philodrammatic Circle of Ermete Novelli."] New York: Manhattan Printing Co., 1919.
As the title of this work explains, this talk was given by Cordiferro at the opening of the Philodrammatic Circle of Ermete Novelli.Ermete Novelli was an Italian tragedian who, beginning in 1907, toured in the U.S. (after having done so for years…
Ode alla Calabria [Ode to Calabria].Buenos Aires: Casa ed. "La Voce dei Calabresi," 1933.
With a translation (from Calabrese into Italian) by F. Greco, this recounts an evening soiree given in honor of Cordiferro by his friends from Acri (Cosenza) 14 December 1930 in the house of Antonio Meringolo in Brooklyn.See the full description of…
Ode alla Calabria [Ode to Calabria]. Buenos Aires: Casa ed. "La Voce dei Calabresi," 1933.
This work, published by the book arm of the Italian-language Argentinian newspaper, La Voce dei Calabresi, commemorates and reflects a literary soiree held in Brooklyn in 1930 (and elsewhere, e.g., Toronto) in which the title poem was recited (and…
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…
Juvenilia: Italian and English Poems. New York: Saitta Press Co., 1928.
This was a gift from the author's son, also Pellegrino D'Acierno, distinguished literary scholar and professor at Hofstra U., now retired.
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…
La carezza divina: romanzo [The Divine Caress: a Novel]. Milano: Casa ed. Sonzogno (Alberto Matarelli), 1939-XVII.
The special interest of this work is that it provides an autobiographical glimpse of Pallavicini, hidden behind the character Giorgio Albani. It provides a closeup and intimate portrayal of the "irresolute dualism of the children of the second…
Per le vie del mondo [Along the Highways of the World]. Milano: C.E.Sonzogno (Matarelli), 1933.
This work also appeared as a serial in the Corriere d'America in 1922-23 published under the title Il romanzo d’un emigrate [The Novel of an Emigrant]. The main characters are its just and strong hero, Bruno Speri, who also appears in L’amante delle…
Tutto il dolore, tutto l'amore [All of the Pain, All of the Love: A novel in an Italian American Environment]. San Francisco: L'Italia Press Company, Ed., 1926.
The title page states, “Pubblicato nelle appendici del Giornale ‘L’Italia’ di San Francisco,” [Published as appendices of the San Francisco newspaper, L’Italia]. Like many of the works of both fiction and non-fiction (e.g., Carnovale, Il giornalismo)…
Accordi e dissonanze [Harmonies and Dissonances]. Milano: Editrice Convivio Letterario, 1958.
Several of the poems from this Italian original collection are translated in Martino Marazzi's Voices of Italian America: a History of Early Italian American Literature with a Critical Anthology (Madison, 2004).
Nel fuoco del rimorso [In the Fire of Remorse]. New York: La Lucerna, 1949.
No. 103 of 500 numbered copies.For a biography of Ruotolo, see the description in Geremiade al Bambino Gesù.
Convito d'amore: poemetto [Boarding School of Love: a short poem]. New York: La Lucerna, 1949.
No. 474 of 500 numbered copies.For Ruotolo's biography, see the description in Geremiade al Bambino Gesù.
Geremiade al Bambino Gesù [Jeremiad to the Baby Jesus]. New York: La Lucerna: rivista mensile religiosa culturale diretta da Scilla de Glauco, 1948 [Monthly religious and cultural magazine directed by Scilla de Glauco].
Ruotolo, a close friend of Arturo Giovannitti, spent his infancy in Campagna, according to Francesco Durante, and went to Naples to study sculpting with Vincenzo Gemito. In 1908, he moved to New York, to sculpt. He was a teacher at and co-founder of…
Il mio primo maestro: poemetto di Onorio Ruotolo [My First Master: a short poem of Onorio Ruotolo]. New York: La Lucerna, 1948.
Inscribed in 1951 on the verso of the title page by Ruotolo "al caro amico Hugo Rolland...[to {my} dear friend Hugo Rolland . . . " This is copy no. 110 of this "edizione limitata di 500 copie numerate [edition limitated to 500 numbered…
I canti d 'un raggio di sole [Songs of a Ray of Sunlight]. St. Louis: Fairmount Publishing, 1951.
One of several bi-lingual books of poetry in small, handsome format by what appears to have been the author's own Fairmount Publisher. Facing translations by C. Victor Stahl. Unlike many other post-war Italian poetry publications in the U.S., which…
Canti esotici degli Ozarks [Exotic Songs of the Ozarks]. St. Louis: Fairmount Publishing, 1958.
This is No. 373 of 500 copies printed of this work. It is another bi-lingual work by what appears to be Caradonna's own publishing operation, with facing translation in this case by Charles Guenther. The very American subject matter of these songs…