Pictures from Italy

by Charles Dickens, 1st World Library (Editor), 1stworld Library (Editor)

Overview

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - If the readers of this volume will be so kind as to take their credentials for the different places which are the subject of its author's reminiscences, from the Author himself, perhaps they may visit them, in fancy, the more agreeably, and with a better understanding of what they are to expect. Many books have been written upon Italy, affording many means of studying the history of that interesting country, and the innumerable associations entwined about it. I make but little reference to that stock of information; not at all regarding it as a necessary consequence of my having had recourse to the storehouse for my own benefit, that I should reproduce its easily accessible contents before the eyes of my readers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421814179
Publisher:	1st World Library
Publication date:	01/01/2006
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

A literary phenomenon in his lifetime and renowned as much for his journalism and public speaking as for his novels, Charles Dickens (1812–70) now ranks as the most important Victorian writer and one of the most influential and popular authors in the English language. His memorable and vividly rendered characters and his combination of humour, trenchant satire and compassion have left an indelible mark on our collective imagination.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington

Table of Contents

One reader's passport; Going through France; Lyons, the Rhone, and the Goblin of Avignon; Avignon to Genoa; Genoa and its neighbourhood; To Parma, Modena, and Bologna; Through Bologna and Ferrara; An Italian dream; By Verona, Mantua, and Milan, across the Pass of the Simplon into Switzerland; To Rome by Pisa and Siena; Rome; A rapid diorama.

Editorial Reviews

This travelogue of Dickens's 1844 Italian sojourn retains the wit and sumptuous detail of his novels, but lacking an explicit narrative, the book never coalesces into much more than a series of sketches. The fragmentary nature of the text is exacerbated by the removal, by editor V. Geetha, of "sections that appear tediously familiar today." As a result, the most memorable sections of the book are not descriptions of the Italian countryside or cities, but Dickens's own reveries on memory and history, which still hold their power even in excerpt. In fact, the text is somewhat secondary in this handsome edition; the primary reason to obtain this volume is the gorgeous illustrative work of Italian artist Livia Signorini. Collaging old maps, postcards, and photographs, Signorini's design complements the introspective nature of Dickens's text, particularly when she interprets his surreal vision of Venice in an eerie, dream-like four-panel spread. So while Dickens aficionados may be disappointed by the textual liberties taken by Geetha, those interested in studying the ways in which visual art and text can interact with and complement one another will gain much from paging through this edition. Color illus. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly