The House of Others

The illegitimate son of a fortune teller, Ezio Comparoni (1920-52) never knew his father, rarely left his home town, and admitted no one to his home. His deliberate obscurity was compounded by his use of many pseudonyms, including Silvio d'Arzo, under which he wrote the remarkable novella and three stories collected in The House of Others.The novella The House of Others is among the rare perfect works of twentieth century fiction. In a desolate mountain village an old woman visits the parish priest, ostensibly to ask about dissolving a marriage. Gradually, as she probes for information on "special cases"--cases in which what is obviously wrong can also be irrefutably right--it becomes clear her true question is whether or not she might take her own life. The question is metaphysical, involving not only the woman's life but the priest's; and to it he has no answer.

Literature & Fiction

D'Arzo, Silvio

Literary

Marlboro Press

Contemporary

A Singular Man

Bove, Emmanuel

After his marriage to a psychiatrist nine years his senior, Jouve's work, once marked by the great Christian mystics, became grounded in the Freudian unconscious, site of the conflict between Eros and Thanatos. Hélène is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy's passion for an older woman. Originally published in 1934, it is considered the high point of Jouve's prose career.

Helene

Jouve, Pierre Jean

Published in 1925, Jouve's first novel strikingly prefigures the French new wave in fiction. Paulina, said to be the most beautiful woman in Milan, enters a passionate affair with a married man. Her love is all-consuming, yet she is plagued by its impurity in the eyes of her family, of society, of God. The death of her father, and the subsequent death of her lover's wife, send Paulina into an abyss from which neither her love nor faith can rescue her.

Paulina 1880

In 1878 Robert Louis Stevenson set out on a walking tour of the Cévennes behind Modestine, the donkey that carried his baggage. The one hundred twenty-mile trip was through difficult country, and Modestine proved to be less than agreeable, too. Although Stevenson's adventure lasted only twelve days, his account suggests a much longer journey, with all sorts of backward glances, detours, and retracing of steps, both on the terrain and in spirit. Stevenson's third book, Travels with a Donkey was originally intended as a lighthearted sketch, a companion-piece to his recent Inland Voyage. Although he would not be recognized as a major author until the publication of Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one can see his voice developing. Full of charm and instruction, Travels with a Donkey serves as a guide to alternatives to the restless and distracted standard of contemporary travel.

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (Marlboro Travel)

STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS

The distinguished Italian poet Guido Gozzano (1883-1916) embarked for India in February 1912, ostensibly to treat his tuberculosis. His trip lasted three months and, all told, he spent six weeks on the subcontinent. His dispatches home for a newspaper are collected and published here in English for the first time. The extent of Gozzano's travels--to Ceylon, Goa, Agra, Jaipur--makes one wonder how the writer could visit all or even most of the places he so vividly describes. "I did not honestly think I would find so much of it intact," the spellbound Gozzano repeats to himself, before what he must shortly recognize as prodigious evidence of decay.

Journey toward the Cradle of Mankind (Marlboro Travel)

Gozzano, Guido

Marinelli, David

History & Criticism

Guido Gozzano

Hills and the Sea, first published in 1906 to critical acclaim, collects thirty-eight of Hilaire Belloc's essays, spanning several periods of time and travel. The New York Times noted, "[This] book abounds in sweetness and light, and one must be something more than human or something less not to find therein some congenial and sympathetic message--possibly many." Belloc captures the essence of each place he visits--whether on the gloomy English fens, or the sunny Provence and Languedoc regions of France, or navigating the North Sea in a leaky boat. Praised for his blend of wit and philosophy, Belloc also weaves together fantasy and fact, producing portraits that take on mythic proportions.

Hills and the Sea (Marlboro Travel)

Travel

BELLOC, HILAIRE

Europe

"The book is worth reading from beginning to end," said The Nation in June 1905, upon the first American publication of this classic work of travel literature. The second of two memorable trips to the Mediterranean. The second was to Calabria and the wild Italian coast south of Naples. From bad food to filthy inns and dangerously watered wine, to a strange malarial-type fever which kept him bedridden for days, Gissing suffered all for the sake of viewing the sites and old ruins of "Magna Graecia," and to see for himself the classical cities he called his "land of romance." Filled with humor, pathos, and captivating landscapes, By the Ionian Sea continues to inspire the traveler, while re-educating the reader in the glories of this still-forgotten corner of Italy.

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy (Marlboro Travel)

GISSING, GEORGE

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Books by Marlboro Press

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The House of Others

The House of Others

A Singular Man

Helene

Paulina 1880

Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes (Marlboro Travel)

Journey toward the Cradle of Mankind (Marlboro Travel)

Journey toward the Cradle of Mankind (Marlboro Travel)

Hills and the Sea (Marlboro Travel)

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy (Marlboro Travel)