Raccolta di discorsi per ogni occasione; Brindisi ed augurii [Collected Speeches for Every Occasion; Toasts and Greetings]. New York: Società Libraria Italiana, 1917.

06-11_A.jpg
06-11_B.jpg

Title

Raccolta di discorsi per ogni occasione; Brindisi ed augurii [Collected Speeches for Every Occasion; Toasts and Greetings]. New York: Società Libraria Italiana, 1917.

Description

The Collection boasts two quite different editions of this popular work (to judge from the high survival rate reflected in the frequent availability for purchase of this work).

Copy 1: the New York printing, this edition: Each of these two not quite identical editions — printed in New York and in Rome purportedly both in 1917 — appears from their title pages and covers to be two works bound in one, but each in fact is one text divided into six separate parts. Parts 1–3 are comprised of Giovanni Molinari’s model speeches and commemorative discourses, in prose, “for all occasions.”

Parts 4 and 5 are all poems written by Giuseppe Valvo and Riccardo Cordiferro, respectively, that are toasts and good wishes for weddings, banquets and other celebratory occasions. Note in Cordiferro's part, a toast made by a completely illiterate, prominent immigrant, on the occasion of a picnic organized under the auspices of a leading Italian American society, a sarcastic comment discussed in Francesco Durante's essay on Cordiferro on the website.

Part 6, titled Altri brindisi (Other Toasts), is a modest contribution of six pages of poems by a fourth author, Modestino Sessa, though, unlike the first three, he is not credited on the title page. This brown cloth edition was, as noted, printed in the United States. (The red cloth edition was published in Italy.)

Small differences may be found in the physical book: the American issue is of a slightly smaller format, lacks the half-title for Molinari’s work that is found in the Italian printing, and has fewer pages - for the explanation of which, see below - and a smaller typeface.

Copy 2, printed in Italy, contains a misplaced gathering: the signature of the gathering comprised of pages 113–144 is misprinted as “3” instead of “5,” thus pages 113–144 are duplicated. It begs the question, how many other issues were affected by the same printing error?

In fact, there is one substantive difference in the text of the Italian edition as well, an edition that was clearly published some years later, not in 1917: despite its having the same nominal 1917 publication date as the U.S. edition, the Italian edition contains a new Part II entitled “La Nuova Italia Fascista,” and discussed events as late as 1922, specifically including the “marcia su Roma,” the 1922 March on Rome by which Mussolini forced the King to name him Prime Minister of Italy.

Part III of the Italian edition has the same title as Part II of the U.S. edition.

Creator

Giovanni Molinari
Riccardo Cordiferro
Giuseppe Valvo

Publisher

Società Libraria Italiana

Date

1917

Format

19 x 13cm; 320 p.

Language

English

Citation

Giovanni Molinari, Riccardo Cordiferro, and Giuseppe Valvo, “Raccolta di discorsi per ogni occasione; Brindisi ed augurii [Collected Speeches for Every Occasion; Toasts and Greetings]. New York: Società Libraria Italiana, 1917.,” Italian-Language American Imprints: The Periconi Collection, accessed March 28, 2024, https://italianamericanimprints.omeka.net/items/show/322.

Output Formats

Geolocation

Comments

Allowed tags: <p>, <a>, <em>, <strong>, <ul>, <ol>, <li>