I sotterranei di New York [The Undergrounds of New York]. New York: Società Libraria Italiana, 1915.

I sotterranei di New York [The Undergrounds of New York]. New York: Società Libraria Italiana, 1915.

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 novel in translation.

Durante, 167-174, has a fine biographical sketch, as well as some translated works. Here are the highlights: Ciambelli (b. Lucca, 1862 - d. New York, 1931) was the most celebrated and prodigious novelist as well as journalist in late 19th-early 20th-century Italian America. As many as eight novels of his were in print and for sale at the bookstore of Il Progresso  Italo-Americano before the 20th century even began (advertisement, July 5, 1896). He contributed to several newspapers and journals simultaneously throughout New York, including Il Progresso, La Voce del Popolo and La Follia di New York.

Called Little Italy’s Eugène Sue, he published several serial novels of Italian American life, usually weaving intricate plots of corruption, criminal women, and outrageous activity in a mixture of Zola and Poe.

Though one of Ciambelli’s dreams — to have his works translated into and published in English — was never realized, that did not slow his industriousness in other writing projects. He was known for Balzac-like all-night bouts of writing, and his serial publications, letteratura d’appendice - such as the present work - were distributed as appendices tucked into successive issues of a newspaper. He also engaged in political organizing among Colorado mineworkers.

Alfredo Bosi, who is generally restrained in describing writers, calls Ciambelli in Cinquant’ anni di vita italiana in America, q.v., “one of the most popular and prolific colonial writers and journalists, capable of setting out in one night, from the first scene to the last, a big play in five acts, of writing a whole novel of the most sensational kind or of filling with the freshest material about all of the Italian colonies in 8-pages: Bernardino Ciambelli!” (p. 408).

See also, Gli Italiani negli Stati Uniti d’America. New York: Italian American Directory Co., 1906, at pp. 153–155 (“Columbus Day”).

This work has advertisements for La Contessa Trigona, 252 pp., said to contain all love letters between the two lovers (compare to both 1912 and 1944 versions of that work, q.v., which have a slightly different title, "L'Assassinio della Contessa Trigona," in which the author is "Duchessa X" (1944 edition), not the "Contessa X" of this 1915 advertisement. In addition, this work contains ads for the famous La vergine di Trieste (famous because no copy has ever been found in any library) and other works.