The Adventures of Pinocchio

Carlo Collodi

Oxford University Press, 1996 - Fiction - 188 pages

Carlo Collodi (pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini) was born in Florence in 1826. He was deeply committed to the political objectives of the Risorgimento: the self-government and unification of Italy, and sympathized with the democratizing reforms accompanying it. Professionally a civil servant, he devoted his most enthusiastic energies to his prolific writing as a freelance journalist and satirical critic of the social and political scene. Also the author of novels and plays, at almost 50 he was commissioned to translate Perrault's fairy tales into Italian. A further commission produced a modern version of a children's classic: Giannettino was an entertaining story which successfully disguised its didactic purpose; it was followed, until the end of Collodi's life, by a series of sequels. The Adventures of Pinocchio was originally serialized in a children's newspaper, with resounding success, and was published as a book in 1883. Collodi died in 1890.

Contents

• Note on the Text and Translation: xlvii
• THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO I: 22
• Explanatory Notes: 171

About the author

Carlo Collodi was born Carlo Lorenzini in Florence. He joined a seminary as a young man, but Collodi found politics more interesting, as the movement for Italian national unification spread. At the age of 22, he became a journalist to work for the Italian independence struggle. In 1848 he founded the satirical journal Il Lampione, which was suppressed in 1849. His next periodical, La Scaramuccia, was more fortunate, and in 1860 he revived Il Lampione again. Collodi also wrote comedies and edited newspapers and reviews. He took the pseudonym 'Collodi' from the name of the town, where his mother was born and where he spent time as a boy. In 1861, when Italy became a united nation, Collodi gave up journalism. After 1870 he settled down as a theatrical censor and magazine editor. He turned soon to children's fantasy, translating Italian versions of the fairy tales of the French writer Charles Perrault's. Collodi also began to write his own children's stories, including a series about a character named Giannettino. The first chapter of Pinocchio appeared in the Giornale dei bambini in 1881, and became an immediate success, Collodi died in Florence on October 26, 1890.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Adventures of Pinocchio; World's classics
• Author: Carlo Collodi
• Translated by: Ann Lawson Lucas
• Contributor: Ann Lawson Lucas
• Edition: abridged, illustrated
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1996
• ISBN: 019282340X, 9780192823403
• Length: 188 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Classics; Juvenile Fiction / Toys, Dolls & Puppets; Literary Criticism / Children's & Young Adult Literature; Literary Criticism / European / Italian