The Illusion
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Language learners with some Italian reading ability who want to improve their reading of the original
- Students and scholars of Italian verismo or the late-nineteenth-century European novel
- Literature enthusiasts seeking to broaden their reading through public-domain electronic resources
- Readers who need original Italian texts for textual analysis or translation practice
Not a good fit for
- General readers with no Italian who want to read a story effortlessly
- Readers who prefer fast-paced contemporary narrative and lack patience for lengthy psychological description
- Beginners who need an introductory edition with detailed annotations and a guide
Reading tips
- Learn the basics of De Roberto and Italian verismo before starting the text; this helps in understanding the narrative intent
- Keep an Italian dictionary or electronic translation tool at hand; with long sentences, parse the structure first, then work out the meaning
- Read it alongside other Italian novels of the same period to observe how verismo handles psychological portrayal
- Note the turning points between illusion and reality as you read, to help you trace the themes afterward
About the publisher
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.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
FAQ
In what language is this edition, and what language level is required?
Does this electronic edition include annotations or an introduction?
What are the characteristics of De Roberto's writing style?
Can I read this book without any Italian?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Federico De Roberto (1861–1927) was an Italian verismo writer. Born in Naples, he moved with his family to Catania in early childhood. He began his career in journalism and associated with leading verismo writers such as Verga and Capuana, whose influence shaped his own fiction. His masterpiece, I Viceré, traces the rise and fall of a Sicilian aristocratic family to reflect the social changes around Italian unification; his other works include L'Illusione, Ermanno Raeli, Documenti Umani and Catania. His fiction focuses chiefly on Sicilian society and historical change, with a precise, restrained style and close attention to psychology and social observation. Twelve of his works are held in the collection. Public information on his life and writing is limited and calls for further study.
