Godfather to Mussolini, national hero of Italy and the WWI irredentist movement, literary icon of Joyce and Pound, lover of actress Eleonora Duse: here is Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s extraordinary biography of Gabriele d’Annunzio, poet, bon vivant, harbinger of Italian fascism. Gabriele d’Annunzio was Italy’s premier poet at a time when poetry mattered enough to trigger riots. A brilliant self-publicist in the first age of mass media, he used his fame to sell his work, seduce women, and promote his extreme nationalism. In 1915 d’Annunzio’s incendiary oratory helped drive Italy to enter the First World War, in which he achieved heroic status as an aviator. In 1919 he led a troop of mutineers into the Croatian port of Fiume and there a delinquent city-state. Futurists, anarchists, communists, and proto-fascists descended on the city. So did literati and thrill seekers, drug dealers, and prostitutes. After fifteen months an Italian gunship brought the regime to an end, but the adventure had its sequel: three years later, the fascists marched on Rome, belting out anthems they’d learned in Fiume, as Mussolini consciously modeled himself after the great poet. At once an aesthete and a militarist, d’Annunzio wrote with equal enthusiasm about Fortuny gowns and torpedoes, and enjoyed making love on beds strewn with rose petals as much as risking death as an aviator. Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s stunning biography vividly re-creates his flamboyant life and dramatic times, tracing the early twentieth century’s trajectory from Romantic idealism to world war and fascist aggression.

Novelist, playwright, and poet Gabriele D'Annunzio (1863-1938) shocked and dazzled early twentieth-century Europe with his sexual exploits, military feats, and political escapades. More than any other figure since the unification of Italy, he casts a shadow forward to the present day. His relationships with the worlds of Italian culture, theatre, and politics were unique, fiery, and always controversial. His literary achievements have influenced generations of Italian writers. This is the most authoritative biography of the man in any language.

Putting the sex back in Pleasure, here is the first new English translation since the Victorian era of the great Italian masterpiece of sensuality and seduction Like Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray, Andrea Sperelli lives his life as a work of art, seeking beauty and flouting the rules of morality and social interaction along the way. In his aristocratic circles in Rome, he is a serial seducer. But there are two women who command his special regard: the beautiful young widow Elena, and the pure, virgin-like Maria. In Andrea’s pursuit of the exalted heights of extreme pleasure, he plays them against each other, spinning a sadistic web of lust and deceit. This new translation of D’Annunzio’s masterpiece, the first in more than one hundred years, restores what was considered too offensive to be included in the 1898 translation—some of the very scenes that are key to the novel’s status as a landmark of literary decadence. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 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.

Originally published in 1889, this work's protagonist Andrea Sperelli introduced the Italian culture to aestheticism and a taste for decadence. The young count seeks beauty, despises the bourgeois world, and rejects the basic rules of morality and social interaction. His corruption is evident in his sadistic superimposing of two women.

The most comprehensive English translation of the poetry of Gabriele D'Annunzio.Gabriele D'Annunzio, Prince of Montenevoso, Duke of Gallese (12 March 1863 - 1 March 1938), was an Italian poet, journalist, playwright and soldier during World War I. He occupied a prominent place in Italian literature from 1889 to 1910 and later political life from 1914 to 1924. He was often referred to under the epithets Il Vate ("the Poet") or Il Profeta ("the Prophet").

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book focuses on the notion of desire in late-nineteenth-century Italy, and how this notion shapes the life and works of two of Italy’s most prominent authors at that time, Giovanni Pascoli and Gabriele D’Annunzio. In the fin de siècle, the philosophical speculation on desire, inspired by Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche intersected the popularization of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Within this context, desire is conceptualized as an obscure force and remnant of mankind’s animalistic origins. Both Pascoli and D’Annunzio put into play the drama of desire as a force splitting the unity of the characters in their works, and variously attempt to provide solutions to this haunting force within the human self.

Gabriele d'Annunzio, born Gaetano Rapagnetta (1863-1938) was an Italian poet, writer, novelist, dramatist, womanizer and daredevil who went on to have a controversial role in politics as figure-head of the Italian Fascist movement and mentor of Benito Mussolini. His literary works included: "The Child of Pleasure," "The Intruder," "The MAidens of the Rocks," and "The Flame of Life" ("Il Fuoco").

The Intruder tells the story of Tullio Hermil, who is habitually unfaithful to his loving wife Giuliana, until one day when the wife eventually does the same. Tullio is handsome, smart, and strong. He considers himself superior to other men. He is repeatedly unfaithful to his patient and innocent wife, Juliana, who tolerates his abuse and infidelity for a long time. At last, growing exhausted from his own behavior, Tullio tries to reconcile with his wife. Things take a huge turn in his life when he finds out that Juliana has gotten pregnant with another man's baby. When the baby - the Intruder - is born, Tullio begins to plan a crime that can lead to devastating results. It is a horrifyng sory by the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. The author displays his true genius in the novel with his unusual storyline that is not everybody's cup of tea, with characters that will infuriate and entertain at the same time.