In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_
and text in bold like =this=.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated
variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used
has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
* * * * *
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH
_Uniform with this Volume._
=Pall Mall Gazette.=--'A masterpiece. The story holds and haunts
one. Unequalled even by the great French contemporary whom, in his
realism, D’Annunzio most resembles, is the account of the pilgrimage
to the shrine of the Virgin by the sick, deformed, and afflicted. It
is a great prose poem, that of its kind cannot be surpassed. Every
detail of the scene is brought before us in a series of word-pictures
of wonderful power and vivid colouring, and the ever-recurring refrain,
'Viva Maria! Maria Evviva!’ rings in our ears as we lay down the book.
It is the work of a master, whose genius is beyond dispute.’
=Daily Telegraph.=--'The author gives us numerous delightful
pictures, pictures of Italian scenery, simple sketches, too, of
ordinary, commonplace, innocent lives. The range of his female portrait
gallery is almost as wide and varied as that of George Meredith. His
Ippolita, his Marie Ferrès, his Giuliana Hermil, live as strong and
vivid presentments of real and skilfully contrasted women. _The
Triumph of Death_ ends with a tragedy, as it also begins with one.
Between the two extremes are to be found many pages of poetry, of
tender appreciation of nature, of rare artistic skill, of subtle and
penetrative analysis.’
=Daily News.=--'The close of the tragedy is swift and haunting.
It is impossible to overpraise the art. Every page is enriched with
descriptive passages of effects of nature, of music, of art, that
arrest the imagination and linger in the memory. In his words seem
entangled the very breath and sunshine of Italy--its translucent
moonlight skies, its incomparable horizons. It is difficult by
quotation to do justice to the author’s power of giving the vivid
impression of a scene.’
=Daily Chronicle.=--'The little effects of landscape are
skilfully touched in and harmonised with the emotion of the moment.
The incidental pictures of peasant life are most interesting, and the
terrible pandemonium at the shrine of Casalbordino is described with
Zolaesque vigour.’
=Scotsman.=--'The imaginative and penetrative force, the eloquence
and the artistic skill, are beyond question.’
=Westminster Gazette.=--'For a vivid and searching description
of the Italian peasant on his religious side, written with knowledge
and understanding, these pages could hardly be surpassed. We see
their Paganism, and their poverty, and their squalor, yet also that
imaginative temper which lends a certain dignity to their existence.
The narrative is remorseless ... yet it is rich and full of atmosphere.
M. D’Annunzio has a tender eye for natural detail; the landscape of
Italy, its flowers and trees, kindle him to genuine poetry. We are left
at the close of his story with a feeling that something like genius is
at work. This book is one which will not yield to any simple test. It
is a work of singular power, which cannot be ignored, left unread when
once started, or easily banished from the mind when read.’
=The Morning Post.=--'It compels attention for its intense and
minute “realism” in the presentation of the relations of the man and
the woman, and equal intensity and minuteness in the description of
things in general.’
THE CHILD OF PLEASURE
_Uniform with this Volume._
=Literature.=--'For the work of a man of twenty-five, this book is
nothing less than marvellous. There is no stumbling or hesitation in
it. The command of language, the confidence of thought, the knowledge
of character and sensation, displayed by D’Annunzio, at an age when the
majority of novelists and poets have been groping in the dark for style
and substance, are ever awe-inspiring. D’Annunzio began his career as a
writer of verse; his prose is written with the delight in language, the
love of words, of a poet.’
=Manchester Guardian.=--'Wonderfully absorbing, for it is written
with a strange psychological intelligence, it is full of vivid
descriptions, vehement narrative, and contains pages of rare beauty
in which an ideal language really evokes the moods of the soul that
it interprets. There is in the novel some lovely verse which has been
rendered with rare felicity by Mr. Symons.’
=Daily Graphic.=--'The wonderful beauty of the descriptions,
the wealth of colour, and most of all the realisation of a certain
emotional pleasure which the contemplation of the beautiful produces in
some natures, this is all so finely given, that if only as a study of
human character the work would be interesting. But the greatest merit
of the book is the poetic beauty and richness of the language, which
makes it a glowing poem in prose.’
THE VICTIM
_Uniform with this Volume._
=The Pall Mall Gazette.=--'_The Victim_ will most certainly not lessen
the enthusiasm of the English cult of D’Annunzio; it will, and should,
attract new admirers. No word but genius will fit his analysis of the
mental history of the faithless husband.... The genius of D’Annunzio
is shown alike in the bold directness of the conception, and the
perfection with which he works out every mental detail that follows
therefrom, and compels every sentence to do its full share of the work
without effort. It is a gloomy, saddening book, but a great one.’
=The Daily Chronicle.=--'The book contains many descriptive passages
of rare beauty, passages which by themselves are lovely little prose
lyrics. It is a story of a terrible experience told by the man who had
endured it. It is therefore a self-revelation; the revelation of the
sort of self that D’Annunzio delineates with a skill and knowledge so
extraordinary. The soul of the man, raw, bruised, bleeding, is always
before us.’
=The Daily Mail.=--'The vivid imagination of D’Annunzio’s novels, their
power of analysis, their grip of human emotions, and their grim truth,
are beyond dispute. In _The Victim_ there is the same quality of genius
that was so readily recognisable in _The Triumph of Death_ and in _The
Child of Pleasure_, and in reading it one is impressed anew with the
young author’s precise knowledge of life, his skill in interpretation,
and his earnestness. The whole narrative is so hauntingly real, that
one cannot put it aside until the end is reached.’