With this posthumously published anthology--a successor to his bestselling Italian Folktales--Italo Calvino, a contemporary surveyor of the otherwordly, pays homage to twenty-six of his nineteenth-century precursors. The resulting volume is both an education in the history of fantastic literature and a rollercoaster ride of wonder and terror, vampires, ghosts, and the rebellious creatures of our own psyches.

Selections include:

E.T.A. Hoffmann--'The Sandman'
Gérard de Nerval--'the Enchanted Hand'
Nikolai Gogol--'The Nose'
Edgar Allan Poe--'The Tell-Tale Heart'
Hans Christian Andersen--'The Shadow'
Ambrose Bierce--'Chickamauga'
Robert Louis Stevenson--'The Bottle Imp'
Henry James--'The Friends of the Friends'
H.G. Wells--'The Country of the Blind'

Comprising stories of the supernatural and narratives of the everyday uncanny, Fantastic Tales is a gallery of enchantments, deliciously entertaining yet more disturbing than our most persistent nightmares.

For the first time in paperback--a volume of thirty-seven diabolically inventive stories, fables, and 'impossible interviews' from one of the great fantasists of the 20th century, displaying the full breadth of his vision and wit.  Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition.

Città invisibili (Le)

Città invisibili (Le)

Quarant'anni (1945-1985) di scritti di Calvino 'dispersi' su quotidiani e riviste. La raccolta presentata in questo volume documenta la straordinaria ampiezza dei suoi interessi, la lucidità delle sue analisi, l'esattezza della sua scrittura. Calvino ci spinge a leggere e rileggere autori classici e contemporanei, si occupa di cinema, di antropologia, di scienza, di arti figurative, discute dei rapporti tra letteratura e politica, commenta avvenimenti di politica e di costume. Oltre alle raccolte di saggi pubblicate in vita ('Una pietra sopra', 'Collezione di sabbia' e le famosissime 'Lezioni americane') questo volume propone anche pagine autobiografiche, interviste, descrizioni di luoghi e reportages di viaggi.

A major testament by an essential 20th century writer composed of five strikingly elegant 'memory exercises' about his life and work--now available in paperback. With visionary passion, the author traces pieces of his childhood and adolescence, his experiences during WWII, and more. 'Storytelling at its best.'--Chicago Tribune.

Six Memos for the Millennium is a collection of five lectures Italo Calvino was about to deliver at the time of his death. Here is his legacy to us: the universal values he pinpoints become the watchwords for our appreciation of Calvino himself.

What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. A sixth lecture, on consistency, was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century—a fitting gift for the next millennium.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

Introduction by Peter Washington; Translation by William Weaver

Italo Calvino's masterpiece combines a love story and a detective story into an exhilarating allegory of reading, in which the reader of the book becomes the book's central character.

Based on a witty analogy between the reader's desire to finish the story and the lover's desire to consummate his or her passion, IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER is the tale of two bemused readers whose attempts to reach the end of the same book—IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER, by Italo Calvino, of course—are constantly and comically frustrated. In between chasing missing chapters of the book, the hapless readers tangle with an international conspiracy, a rogue translator, an elusive novelist, a disintegrating publishing house, and several oppressive governments. The result is a literary labyrinth of storylines that interrupt one another—an Arabian Nights of the postmodern age.

'Le fiabe sono vere. Sono il catalogo dei destini che possono darsi a un uomo e a una donna, soprattutto per la parte di vita che è appunto il farsi di un destino'. A metà degli anni '50 Calvino raccoglie e riscrive completamente le più belle fiabe di tutte le regioni italiane, preservando così la tradizione orale.

'Le fiabe sono vere. Sono il catalogo dei destini che possono darsi a un uomo e a una donna, soprattutto per la parte di vita che è appunto il farsi di un destino'. A metà degli anni '50 Calvino raccoglie e riscrive completamente le più belle fiabe di tutte le regioni italiane, preservando così la tradizione orale.