Italo Calvino - Fiction, Letters, and Non-fiction (30 books)

ITALO CALVINO (1923-1985) was an Italian journalist, short-story writer, and novelist whose whimsical and imaginative fables made him one of the most important Italian fiction writers in the 20th century.

Two of Calvino’s first fictional works were inspired by his participation in the Italian Resistance: the Neorealistic novel PATH TO THE NEST OF SPIDERS (1947; revised 1998), which views the Resistance through the experiences of an adolescent as helpless in the midst of events as the adults around him; and the collection of stories entitled ADAM, ONE AFTERNOON (1949).

Calvino turned decisively to fantasy and allegory in the 1950s, producing the three fantastic tales that brought him international acclaim. The first of these fantasies, THE CLOVEN VISCOUNT (1952), is an allegorical story of a man split in two -- a good half and an evil half -- by a cannon shot; he becomes whole through his love for a peasant girl. The second and most highly praised fantasy, THE BARON IN THE TREES (1957), is a whimsical tale of a 19th-century nobleman who one day decides to climb into the trees and who never sets foot on the ground again. From the trees he does, however, participate fully in the affairs of his fellow men below. The tale wittily explores the interaction and tension between reality and imagination. The third fantasy, THE NONEXISTENT KNIGHT (1959), is a mock epic chivalric tale.

Among Calvino’s later works of fantasy is COSMICOMICS (1965), a stream-of-consciousness narrative that treats the creation and evolution of the universe. In the later novels INVISIBLE CITIES (1972), THE CASTLE OF CROSSED DESTINIES (1973), and IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELER (1979), Calvino uses playfully innovative structures and shifting viewpoints in order to examine the nature of chance, coincidence, and change.

Also included here are several collections of essays, letters, and autobiographical writings.


The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise indicated:


Fiction

* Adam, One Afternoon (Vintage, 2000)

* The Baron in the Trees (Harcourt, 1977)

* The Castle of Crossed Destinies (Vintage, 1998)

* The Cloven Viscount (Harcourt, 2012)

* The Complete Cosmicomics (Penguin, 2010)

* Difficult Loves (Vintage, 1999)

* Fantastic Tales: Visionary and Everyday [ed.] (Vintage, 1998)

* If on a winter's night a traveller (Vintage, 1998)

* Invisible Cities (Vintage, 1997)

* Italian Folktales (Harcourt, 1980)

* Marcovaldo (Vintage, 2001)

* Mr Palomar (Vintage, 1999)

* The Nonexistent Knight (Harcourt, 2012)

* Numbers in the Dark & Other Stories (Vintage, 1995)

* Our Ancestors: The Cloven Viscount / The Baron in the Trees / The Nonexistent Knight (Vintage, 1998)

* The Path to the Nest of Spiders (Ecco, 1976)

* The Path to the Spiders' Nests [revised edition] (Ecco, 1998) -- PDF

* The Queen's Necklace (Penguin, 2011)

* t zero (Harcourt, 2012)

* Under the Jaguar Sun (Harcourt, 2012)

* The Watcher & Other Stories (Harcourt, 1971)


Essays, Letters, and Non-fiction

* The Art of Fiction, No. 130 (Paris Review, Fall 1992). Interview by William Weaver and Damien Pettigrew. -- PDF

* Collection of Sand: Essays (Harcourt, 2013)

* Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings (Penguin, 2003)

* Into the War (Penguin, 2011)

* Letters, 1941-1985 (Princeton UP, 2013). Selected by Michael Wood.

* The Road to San Giovanni (Penguin, 2009)

* Six Memos for the Next Millennium (Vintage, 1993)

* The Uses of Literature: Essays (Harcourt, 1986) -- PDF

* Why Read the Classics? (Vintage, 2000)