SHORT STORY CLASSICS
Reading edition
(FOREIGN)
VOLUME TWO ITALIAN AND SCANDINAVIAN
EDITED BY William Patten
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
P. F. COLLIER & SON NEW YORK
Copyright 1907 By P. F. Collier & Son The use of the copyrighted translations in this collection has been authorized by the authors or their representatives. The translations made especially for this collection are covered by the general copyright.
CONTENTS—VOLUME II
ITALIAN
PAGE
THE LOST LETTER Enrico Castelnuovo 329
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA Giovanni Verga 347
THE SILVER CRUCIFIX Antonio Fogazzaro 359
THE LITTLE SARDINIAN DRUMMER Edmondo de Amicis 375
LULU’S TRIUMPH Matilda Serao 387
THE END OF CANDIA Gabriele d’Annunzio 411
SIGNORA SPERANZA Luigi Pirandello 427
TWO MEN AND A WOMAN Grazia Deledda 481
SCANDINAVIAN
RAILROAD AND CHURCHYARD Björnstjerne Björnson 511
BJÖRN SIVERTSEN’S WEDDING TRIP Holger Drachmann 547
JALO THE TROTTER Johann Jacob Ahrenberg 567
THE PLAGUE AT BERGAMO Jens Peter Jacobsen 583
KAREN Alexander Lange Kielland 595
LOVE AND BREAD Jean August Strindberg 605
IRENE HOLM Hermann Joachim Bang 619
THE OUTLAWS Selma Lagerlöf 637
THE LOST LETTER
BY ENRICO CASTELNUOVO
Enrico Castelnuovo, who was born at Florence in 1839, is one of the earliest of Italian writers of the modern short story, and a link between the group of poets, dramatists, and novelists, beginning with Manzoni (1785-1873), and the group of his own immediate contemporaries, including Carducci, Fogazzaro, Barrili, Farina, Verga, D’Annunzio, De Amicis, Serao, and other disciples of Carducci.
His literary career began with a little romance called “Il quaderno della zia”; it struck not only his first note of popularity, but the rich vein of his talent, which consists in minute observation and keen dramatic insight, softened by a sympathetic, almost sentimental, style—a rare combination traced from his first little romance to his later volumes of short stories, and especially marked in the story given here, “The Lost Letter.”
