The Amulet

Neera, 1846-1918Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 159K words
Chapters: 16

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.L'Amuleto by NeeraAuthor: Neera, 1846-1918,Language: Italian, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Mar 17, 2006

Editor's review

L'Amuleto is a novel by the Italian writer Neera (1846–1918), available from Project Gutenberg in the original Italian. Neera was a major woman writer in nineteenth-century Italy, and her work often portrays women's circumstances and family ethics with a delicate touch. The chief value of this public-domain ebook is that it gives Italian-language readers and scholars of foreign literature access to a primary text in the nineteenth-century Italian novel tradition; it is of moderate length and its language bears the marks of its era. It is best read with an awareness of the social transformation following Italian unification, with attention to the realistic depiction of psychology and daily life. For intermediate and advanced learners of Italian, it is also suitable material for practicing literary reading. Note that this is a historical text without modern editing; typography and wording are preserved as originally published, so first-time readers may need a dictionary. It works well as supplementary reading for a foreign literature course or as a classic text in a personal reading plan.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Upper-level Italian majors who need training in reading primary texts
Comparative literature researchers interested in nineteenth-century Italian women's writing
Readers with Italian who enjoy classical realist fiction
Readers who want low-cost access to foreign literature through public-domain ebooks

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Italian at all, for whom the barrier is too high
Readers who prefer fast-paced modern narrative and lack patience for classical realism
Beginners who need notes, introductions, and a modern critical edition

Reading tips

Read the preface or look up Neera's life first before starting the text, to grasp the historical context
Keep an Italian–Chinese dictionary at hand; mark nineteenth-century expressions and look them up in batches
Proceed chapter by chapter, summarizing character relationships and plot developments in one or two sentences after each
Read alongside short stories by contemporary Italian women writers to appreciate differences within the realist tradition

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What language is this edition in?

According to Project Gutenberg, the book is in the original Italian and falls under the PQ Language and Literature category; no translation is provided. Readers need some ability to read Italian, and beginners are advised to use a dictionary and bilingual materials alongside it.

What kind of writer was Neera?

Neera (1846–1918) was a nineteenth-century Italian woman writer; the available information gives only her birth and death years and her authorship of this book. Her work belongs to the Italian realist novel tradition; for biographical details, consult specialized sources, as this edition itself provides no author biography.

Is this ebook suitable for beginners?

Not really. It is a digitized version of a historical text, preserving original wording and typography, and generally offers no modern notes or introduction. Italian beginners will find it difficult; it suits readers with some language foundation who can look things up on their own.

Comments

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About the author

Neera, 1846-1918 Author

Neera (1846–1918) was an Italian woman writer, born Anna Radius Zuccari, who published under the pen name Neera. Public information about her is limited, and her biographical details remain sparse in Chinese-language sources, but she is confirmed to have been active in Italian literary circles from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Four of her works are held in the collection, including L’Amuleto, Nel sogno, La vecchia casa, and L’indomani. These works mostly focus on family life, women’s emotions, and everyday ethics, with a delicate style that blends realism and sentiment. Her writing often begins from ordinary circumstances and attends to women’s situations within marriage and social expectations, using plain and sympathetic language; she occupies a place in the traditions of Italian popular fiction and women’s writing.