Giovanni Verga

Author Code: TGVX

Educated at the University of Catania where he studied law, Verga had begun to write when he was in his teens. From 1860 to 1864 he served in the Catania National Guard. In 1861, he published The Carbonari in the Mountains, his first major work. In 1869, he settled in Florence and in 1872 moved to Milan, where he spent the next 22 years. In 1880, his collection of stories, Life in the Fields, was published and received critical acclaim. One of the stories, Cavalleria rusticana, was adapted for the theatre and also formed the libretto of the Mascagni opera. In 1881, he published The Malavoglia Family and in 1889, Maestro Don Gesualdo, two novels of a projected series of five that remained unfinished. In 1894, he returned to his childhood home in Sicily where he remained until his death from cerebral thrombosis in 1922. Many of Verga's works were translated into English by D.H. Lawrence, an admirer of his talents. His other works include In the Porter's Lodge (1885), The She-Wolf (1894), The Wolf-Hunt (1902) and The Fox-Hunt (1902).