I misteri di New York: romanzo storico sociale| di Menotti Pellegrino |con annesso| Il Grande Manuale Internazionale| degli| Annunzi [The Mysteries of New York: historical social novel of Menotti Pellegrino, and annexed, the Great International Manuale of Advertisements][FACSIMILE]. New York: Tip. Ital. U Di Luca & Benedetti, 1903.
Title
I misteri di New York: romanzo storico sociale| di Menotti Pellegrino |con annesso| Il Grande Manuale Internazionale| degli| Annunzi [The Mysteries of New York: historical social novel of Menotti Pellegrino, and annexed, the Great International Manuale of Advertisements][FACSIMILE]. New York: Tip. Ital. U Di Luca & Benedetti, 1903.
Description
I misteri di New York, a novel that speaks of crime, corruption and political entanglements within and outside the Italian community, is an “almost indecipherable hodgepodge,” according to Martino Marazzi. Despite that disparagement, 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 translation.
The work opens with a paean to New York to which anyone even now can relate: “NEW YORK! . . . the cradle of fortune sought by the disinherited of all peoples! . . . [the place that represents] America for the majority of the innumerable worshippers of the powerful almighty Dollar.”
Described by Martino Marazzi as "totally disconnected and muddled," with which judgment Durante agrees, this novel is in the "mysteries" genre of Eugène Sue in France in the 19th century, and popularized by Bernardino Ciambelli in New York beginning in the 1890s.
Pellegrino apparently financed this work - self-published and printed by the Tipografia Italiana U Di Luca & Benedetti - with extensive advertising: about every 20-28 pages, the novel is interrupted by six-to-eight pages of advertisements for doctors, banks, manufacturers, real estate companies, and "grosseria"s. Banner advertisements are also interspersed for a local attorney, Philip Saitta, and single-page ads by Pellegrino himself as "traduttore di qualsiasi lavoro commerciale letterario, prosaico, dall'inglese in italiano o dall'italiano in inglese" [translator of whatever commercial or literary prosaic work from English into Italian or from Italian into English]. It is unclear to me how these constitute a "Great International Manuale" of advertisements, but perhaps the ads at the end of the book were not reproduced for this facsimile edition.
Other than this discussion by Marazzi, no biographical information about Pellegrino can be found in any of the contemporary sources, such as Flamma (several decades later than this work but within the period of Pellegrino's publications, see below), or in more contemporary ones (such as Durante, who besides referencing Marazzi, says that the only thing we know about him is his name).
Actually, what we do know is that Pellegrino's writing career seems to have spanned about 55 years, including a much later work than this one - I tre cavalieri di Trinacria (New York, 1929), q.v. - and what may be a much earlier one: a book of poetry published in Palermo 20 years before this work (i.e., in 1883) by one Menotti Pellegrino - the unconventional "last name first name" as well as the subject matter suggests it is the same writer - La scintilla: canti popolari, a copy of which is in the Collection. In addition, this early work was published in Sicily, where the author of the aforementioned work about Trinacria, an ancient name for Sicily, likely hailed from.
Moreover, in the Italian libraries system, I discovered that Pellegrino also wrote the verses for music published - in Italy, according to the catalogue entry, but with no indication of specific location or publisher name - in 1935: Adua: Marcia patriottica/musica di Vittorio Scala; versi di Menotti Pellegrino. We know this is our author because the Italian library (Biblioteca Dannunziana in Lombardy) catalogue entry notes that the frontispiece states that I tre cavalieri di Trinacria is one of the other works by the same author, as are the poems I martiri di Dogali and 'Osanna a Fede contro il 18 novembre 1935.
The Library of Congress’s Catalog of Copyright Entries Part 1 [C] Group 3: dramatic compositions and motion pictures. for the year 1938 lists I tre cavalieri with the subject heading “Madre Sicilia,” its location in that section suggesting Pellegrino adapted his work to either a screenplay or a stage play.
Finally, the 1940 volume of the Library of Congress’s Catalog of Copyright Entries Part 1 [C] Group 3: dramatic compositions and motion pictures. New Series 1940, lists Pellegrino's 1937 copyrighted work, Umano sole: opera lirica-drammatica. I find no copy of this work in any American or Italian libraries.
The work opens with a paean to New York to which anyone even now can relate: “NEW YORK! . . . the cradle of fortune sought by the disinherited of all peoples! . . . [the place that represents] America for the majority of the innumerable worshippers of the powerful almighty Dollar.”
Described by Martino Marazzi as "totally disconnected and muddled," with which judgment Durante agrees, this novel is in the "mysteries" genre of Eugène Sue in France in the 19th century, and popularized by Bernardino Ciambelli in New York beginning in the 1890s.
Pellegrino apparently financed this work - self-published and printed by the Tipografia Italiana U Di Luca & Benedetti - with extensive advertising: about every 20-28 pages, the novel is interrupted by six-to-eight pages of advertisements for doctors, banks, manufacturers, real estate companies, and "grosseria"s. Banner advertisements are also interspersed for a local attorney, Philip Saitta, and single-page ads by Pellegrino himself as "traduttore di qualsiasi lavoro commerciale letterario, prosaico, dall'inglese in italiano o dall'italiano in inglese" [translator of whatever commercial or literary prosaic work from English into Italian or from Italian into English]. It is unclear to me how these constitute a "Great International Manuale" of advertisements, but perhaps the ads at the end of the book were not reproduced for this facsimile edition.
Other than this discussion by Marazzi, no biographical information about Pellegrino can be found in any of the contemporary sources, such as Flamma (several decades later than this work but within the period of Pellegrino's publications, see below), or in more contemporary ones (such as Durante, who besides referencing Marazzi, says that the only thing we know about him is his name).
Actually, what we do know is that Pellegrino's writing career seems to have spanned about 55 years, including a much later work than this one - I tre cavalieri di Trinacria (New York, 1929), q.v. - and what may be a much earlier one: a book of poetry published in Palermo 20 years before this work (i.e., in 1883) by one Menotti Pellegrino - the unconventional "last name first name" as well as the subject matter suggests it is the same writer - La scintilla: canti popolari, a copy of which is in the Collection. In addition, this early work was published in Sicily, where the author of the aforementioned work about Trinacria, an ancient name for Sicily, likely hailed from.
Moreover, in the Italian libraries system, I discovered that Pellegrino also wrote the verses for music published - in Italy, according to the catalogue entry, but with no indication of specific location or publisher name - in 1935: Adua: Marcia patriottica/musica di Vittorio Scala; versi di Menotti Pellegrino. We know this is our author because the Italian library (Biblioteca Dannunziana in Lombardy) catalogue entry notes that the frontispiece states that I tre cavalieri di Trinacria is one of the other works by the same author, as are the poems I martiri di Dogali and 'Osanna a Fede contro il 18 novembre 1935.
The Library of Congress’s Catalog of Copyright Entries Part 1 [C] Group 3: dramatic compositions and motion pictures. for the year 1938 lists I tre cavalieri with the subject heading “Madre Sicilia,” its location in that section suggesting Pellegrino adapted his work to either a screenplay or a stage play.
Finally, the 1940 volume of the Library of Congress’s Catalog of Copyright Entries Part 1 [C] Group 3: dramatic compositions and motion pictures. New Series 1940, lists Pellegrino's 1937 copyrighted work, Umano sole: opera lirica-drammatica. I find no copy of this work in any American or Italian libraries.
Creator
Menotti Pellegrino
Publisher
Tip. Ital. U Di Luca & Benedetti
Date
1903
Format
22.5 x 15.5cm; 388 p.
Language
Italian
Citation
Menotti Pellegrino, “I misteri di New York: romanzo storico sociale| di Menotti Pellegrino |con annesso| Il Grande Manuale Internazionale| degli| Annunzi [The Mysteries of New York: historical social novel of Menotti Pellegrino, and annexed, the Great International Manuale of Advertisements][FACSIMILE]. New York: Tip. Ital. U Di Luca & Benedetti, 1903.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed May 15, 2026, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/240.
Comments