History : A Novel : Elsa Morante : Translated from the Italian by William Weaver
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977. Item #1486 8vo. 245 x 165 mm., [9 ½ x 6 ½ inches]. ix. + 562 pp. including an Author’s Note and a Translator’s Note. With one black and white illustration within the text. Publishers’ black cloth over boards with silver lettering on the spine; deckled fore-edge; top and bottom edges cut smooth with the top edge painted in red; unclipped jacket. Book is Fine: minor rubbing on the spine affecting the silver lettering as well as along on the head and foot of the spine and along the top and bottom edges of the covers; corners lightly bumped; moderate shelf wear; an inscription at the top right of the flyleaf has been cancelled using black marker; light discoloration of the front and back endpapers. Otherwise, in fairly good condition with the textblock clean. Jacket is Near Fine: minor chipping at the foot of the spine and along the top and bottom edges of the covers; moderate soiling and shelf wear. First American Trade Edition. Elisa Morante (1912-1985) was an Italian novelist, poet and translator. History: A Novel, originally published in Italian as La Storia: Romanzo in 1974, focuses on the lives of a half-Jewish schoolteacher and her two sons living in Rome during and after World War II. It achieved popular acclaim at its release, selling over 800,000 copies in its first year and later being made into a film in 1986 and into a television series in 2024: a testament to its lasting influence on Italian popular culture. Some contemporary reviewers, including Pier Paolo Pasolini, decried its anti-ideological stance, but today it is considered by many to be a seminal work of Italian literature and it established Morante as one of the great Italian writers of the twentieth century. William Weaver (1923-1913) was an American translator of twentieth-century Italian literature. He produced translations for some of the most notable Italian authors of his day including Umberto Eco, Primo Levi, and Italo Calvino. Weaver knew Elsa Morante and her husband, Alberto Moravia, while living in Italy in the 1940s and 1950s and it was through their friendship that he was introduced to other novelists in the country.
Price: $265.00