This one-of-a-kind 1926 volume tells of the internal struggles of the Sons of Italy during the fascist era about whether to support the fascist regime in Italy. Benanti seems to have been pro-fascist, but see discussion below of his later…
This is the rare "secondo impressione/ secondo migliaio" in books published by Italians. Note that though published by Il Carroccio, the book was printed by Emporium Press, Francesco Tocci's shop. (Soon after this 1916 publication, Il Carroccio…
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…
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…
The action of this anti-war play unfolds in a little town in northern Italy during the "giornate rosse [Red Days]" of June 1914. The play was presented for the first time at the Filodrammatica Sovversiva di New York [Subversive Amateur Dramatic…
Armando Borghi’s unflattering biography of Mussolini, Mussolini in camicia, was too dangerous (to author, publisher or printer) to be released in Italy: soon after Mussolini’s rise to power in 1922, publishing a work criticizing him or the Fascist…
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.…
Born in Modena in 1877, Forzato-Spezia emigrated with her husband to the U.S. in 1891, and settled in West Hoboken, NJ. She opened a bookstore there renowned for its large selection of booklets of socialist propaganda and social novels. By 1907, she…
With a publication date of 1916, this work appears to have preceded the enormously popular 1917 Raccolta di discorsi per ogni occasione; Brindisi ed augurii of Molinari and Cordiferro, q.v., which was a lengthy work (320 pages) containing speeches…
This work is a report of Paolo Schicchi's trial for attempted murder and other crimes allegedly committed by this anarchist. It includes a statement by the Sicilian-born but international revolutionary anarchist himself, as well as transcripts of…
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…
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…
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…
"Gavroche" (the name of the street urchin in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables) is a pseudonym that two Italian book dealers identify as Gigi Damiani. No other work of Damiani's in the Collection is poetry.The publisher's note is signed "G.P.", which is…
This work is taken from Umanità Nova, a Milanese leftist newspaper that was founded in 1920, and shut down by the fascists in 1922. "Libreria Rossa" was the name adopted by Carlo Tresca, and used used on Tresca's letterhead, along with Il Martello,…
This second grammar by Bassetti followed hard on what he described in ads as the success of the first one. Designed especially for immigrant Italians, it contained worksheets and both correct spelling and phonetic spelling of English words to help…
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…
This work was illustrated by John Abys, who also, as Giovanni Abys, illustrated both the 1912 original and the 1944 reissue of L'Assassinio della Contessa Trigona, q.v.The Divagando Corporation was presumably the publisher also of the more well known…
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…
Vella, an anarchist and Spanish Civil War veteran, briefly visited the US in 1923, where he was a contributor to Il Martello, and witness for the defense in Carlo Tresca's trial for sending obscene material through the mails. Arrested at a rally in…
This is the second edition of this work, the first one with illustrations. The first edition, published in 1892, is also in the Collection. Rossi (b. Veneto, 1857; d. Buenos Aires, 1921) was first published in America on December 13, 1880 in the…
In the year following this “debate” between the revolutionary trade unions of the I.W.W. (and the Federazione) and the reformist A.F. of L., Joseph Ettor became one of the leaders of the Lawrence “Bread and Roses” strike of 1912. It was fateful that…