{"title":"Books by Luigi Pirandello","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780199641192","title":"Three Plays","description":"SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR * HENRY IV * THE MOUNTAIN GIANTSPirandello ranks with Strindberg, Brecht, and Beckett as a seminal figure in modern drama. Innovative and influential, he broke decisively with the conventions of realist theatre to foreground the tensions between art and reality. In his best known play, six characters, imagined but then abandoned by their author, intrude on the rehearsals of a provincial theatre company in an attempt to play out their family drama. In the brilliant Henry IV, a young man believes himself to be the Holy Roman Emperor; attempts to cure him of his delusion have disastrous consequences. The Mountain Giants is Pirandello's last, unfinished masterpiece, in which he moves towards the mythical, and make-believe and real life once more become entangled. The play reflects its author's growing anxiety about the function of art under a fascist regime.This new edition includes Pirandello's important Preface to Six Characters, an essential critical document for understanding the play that made him famous. Anthony Mortimer's lively and performable translations remain scrupulously faithful to the letter and spirit of the originals.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56227236348277,"sku":"9780199641192","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780199641192_c342a0d1-02c4-4745-b917-34d176cc1774.jpg?v=1786012503"},{"product_id":"9781590171158","title":"The Late Mattia Pascal","description":"Mattia Pascal endures a life of drudgery in a provincial town. Then, providentially, he discovers that he has been declared dead. Realizing he has a chance to start over, to do it right this time, he moves to a new city, adopts a new name, and a new course of life—only to find that this new existence is as insufferable as the old one. But when he returns to the world he left behind, it's too late: his job is gone, his wife has remarried. Mattia Pascal's fate is to live on as the ghost of the man he was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn explorer of identity and its mysteries, a connoisseur of black humor, Nobel Prize winner Luigi Pirandello is among the most teasing and profound of modern masters. \u003ci\u003eThe Late Mattia Pascal\u003c\/i\u003e, here rendered into English by the outstanding translator William Weaver, offers an irresistible introduction to this great writer's work","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304738664821,"sku":"9781590171158","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781590171158_7a67be24-ae76-491f-a04e-94058ae52936.jpg?v=1786023013"},{"product_id":"9781854595317","title":"Six Characters in Search of an Author","description":"Pirandello's classic play, updated for the twenty-first century by Headlong.   Blurring the border between fiction and life, between the stage and the world outside, Luigi Pirandello's play Six Characters in Search of an Author exploded onto the stage in 1921 as one of the unique achievements of twentieth-century drama.   Updated and recontextualised in this vertiginous new version, it becomes a dark parable for a media-obsessed age and an exhilarating exploration of how we define art, ourselves and 'reality' in the twenty-first century.   This version by Rupert Goold and Ben Power was first performed at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, in June 2008, in a co-production between Headlong and Chichester Festival Theatre.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56313089163637,"sku":"9781854595317","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781854595317_e8371bb9-76bc-4416-9fa3-7debb271b5ee.jpg?v=1786029650"},{"product_id":"9781962770347","title":"One, None, and a Hundred Grand","description":"\u003cb\u003eA hilarious exploration of the relativism of identity from Italian novelist and playwright Luigi Pirandello, winner of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis uproarious new translation of \u003ci\u003eOne, None, and a Hundred Grand\u003c\/i\u003e delivers the defining work of Italian existentialism to an English speaking audience—in all its madcap glory. The novel’s hero is a wealthy twenty-four-year-old naïf who considers himself “a regular guy,” despite being cursed at birth with a surname that’s “ugly to the point of cruelty: Maggot. Destined to become a fly, with its sour, spiteful, annoying drone.” The story tracks Maggot’s reaction to an offhand act of matrimonial malice. Was he aware that his nose leans to the right? He is struck by the full force of the fact that he does not, and cannot, know how others see him. So he sets out on a quest “to coax forth the many Maggots living inside my closest companions, and destroy them one by one.” It’s a premise, played straight, that acts as an inspired metaphor for the rightward-leaning madness of the 20th century, and a catalyst for a series of absurd scenarios and comic set pieces on par with the very best of 21st century observational comedy—imagine \u003ci\u003eCurb Your Enthusiasm\u003c\/i\u003e in fascist Sicily. Pirandello splits the atom of the self and detonates a tiny moment into “a catastrophe that supervened the very machinery of the cosmos.” Perception and identity are leveled in a literary performance the Nobel laureate regarded as a “complete synthesis of everything I have done and the wellspring of what I will go on to do.”","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56420278010229,"sku":"9781962770347","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781962770347_e87f62f7-3e98-4c5b-986c-4b8e3ed42b76.jpg?v=1786030591"},{"product_id":"shoot","title":"Shoot! – The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinematograph Operator","description":"Originally published in Italian in 1915, \"Shoot!\" is one of the first novels to take as its subject the heady world of early motion pictures. Based on the absurdist journals of fictional Italian camera operator Serafino Gubbio, \"Shoot!\" documents the infancy of film in Europe - complete with proto-divas, laughable production schedules, and cost-cutting measures with priceless effects - and offers a glimpse of the modern world through the camera's lens. \"Shoot!\", presented here in its 1927 English translation, is a classic example of Nobel Prize - winning Sicilian playwright Luigi Pirandello's (1867-1936) literary talent and genius for blurring the line between art and reality. From the film studio Kosmograph, Pirandello's Gubbio steadily winds the crank of his camera by day and scribbles with his pen by night, revealing the world, both mundane and melodramatic, that unfolds in front of his camera. Through Gubbio's narrative - saturated with fantasy and folly - Pirandello grapples with the philosophical implications of modernity. Like much of Pirandello's work, \"Shoot!\" parodies human weaknesses, drawing attention to the themes of isolation and madness as emerging tendencies in the modern world.   Enhanced by new critical commentaries, \"Shoot!\" is an entertaining caricature, capturing early twentieth-century Italian filmmaking and revealing its truths as only a parody can.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466555859317,"sku":"9780226669816","price":51.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780226669816.jpg?v=1785654613"},{"product_id":"six-characters-in-search-of-an-author-and-other-plays","title":"Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays","description":"\u003cb\u003eA volume of plays from the founding architect of twentieth-century drama, including his most popular and controversial work\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Penguin Classic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePirandello is brilliantly innovatory in his forms and themes, and in the combined energy, imagination and visual colours of his theatre. This volume of plays, translated from the Italian by Mark Musa, opens with \u003ci\u003eSix Characters in Search of an Author\u003c\/i\u003e, in which six characters invade the stage and demand to be included in the play. The tragedy \u003ci\u003eHenry IV\u003c\/i\u003e dramatizes the lucid madness of a man who may be King. In \u003ci\u003eSo It Is (If You Think So)\u003c\/i\u003e, the townspeople exercise a morbid curiosity attempting to discover “the truth” about the Ponza family. Each of these plays can lay claim to being Pirandello’s masterpiece, and in exploring the nature of human personality, each one stretches the resources of drama to their limits.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466768294261,"sku":"9780140189223","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780140189223.jpg?v=1785654829"},{"product_id":"six-characters-in-search-of-an-author","title":"Six Characters in Search of an Author","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSix Characters in Search of an Author\u003c\/i\u003e (1921) is a metatheatrical drama by Luigi Pirandello. Viewed as an important work of absurdist literature, the play was a critical failure when it was first staged in Rome. Revised by its author and bolstered by successful performances in New York City, \u003ci\u003eSix Characters in Search of an Author\u003c\/i\u003e has been recognized as a pioneering examination of the nature of creativity, the relationship of the director and actors to the work of art, and the psychological stress associated with staging a theatrical production. While preparing to rehearse a new play by director Luigi Pirandello, a theatre company is interrupted with the arrival of six strangers on set. After a moment of frustration and confusion, the director is told that they are six unfinished characters whose story cannot be told without his intervention. The Father, Mother, Son, Stepdaughter, Boy, and Child refuse to leave, forcing the director to convince his actors to help them fulfill their wish. As the story begins to take shape, the characters exert more and more control over the set and the participation of the other actors, soon overtaking the director entirely. Strange and compelling, \u003ci\u003eSix Characters in Search of an Author\u003c\/i\u003e is a unique play which saw resistance from critics and theatergoers for one reason only: its methods forced them to question the nature of reality itself. This edition of Luigi Pirandello's \u003ci\u003eSix Characters in Search of an Author\u003c\/i\u003e is a classic work of Italian literature reimagined for modern readers.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSince our inception in 2020, \u003cb\u003eMint Editions\u003c\/b\u003e has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57484301435253,"sku":"9781513296869","price":5.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781513296869.jpg?v=1786266358"},{"product_id":"novelle-per-un-anno-una-scelta-audio-download","title":"Novelle per un anno - Una scelta + audio download","description":null,"brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57492394738037,"sku":"9788853620279","price":18.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9788853620279.jpg?v=1786529233"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-luigi-pirandello.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}