Reading Order
The LeopardLampedusa The Leopard Reading Order
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard (1958) is the great novel of Sicily and one of the supreme achievements of Italian fiction — the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, as he watches the unification of Italy destroy the world he was born into and remake it in ways that leave no place for him. The novel covers the years 1860 to 1910, from Garibaldi's landing in Sicily through the protagonist's death and its aftermath, but it is primarily a meditation on change and how the aristocratic mind understands it — 'Everything must change so that everything can stay the same' is the novel's most famous line. Lampedusa wrote the novel in the 1950s and died in 1957 before its publication; it was rejected by two publishers before being accepted by Feltrinelli, which published it posthumously to immediate acclaim.
Where to start
The Leopard
Complete The Leopard Book List
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The Leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa·1958·Lampedusa's only novel and one of the supreme achievements of Italian fiction — Don Fabrizio watching Sicily change as Garibaldi arrives; impossible to follow up because there is nothing else by Lampedusa at this length - 2Buy
Two Stories and a Memory
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa·1961·Lampedusa's only other fiction — two short stories and an autobiographical memory of his childhood summers; essential reading after The Leopard for the autobiographical material that gives context to the novel's portrait of Sicilian aristocratic life - Buy
Voices of Sicily
OptionalVarious authors·2000·An anthology of Sicilian writing — useful context for The Leopard for readers who want to understand the literary tradition Lampedusa belongs to
The Leopard — Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Leopard based on a true story?
The novel is closely based on Lampedusa's family history. Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, is based on Lampedusa's great-grandfather, also a Prince of Salina, who was an astronomer and who lived through the same historical events the novel describes. The settings — the Palermo palace, the summer estate at Donnafugata — are all based on real places in Lampedusa's family life.
What is The Leopard about?
The Leopard follows Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, a Sicilian aristocrat of the old order, as he watches the Risorgimento — the unification of Italy under Garibaldi and the House of Savoy — transform the world he was born into. The novel covers the years 1860 to 1910, from Garibaldi's landing to the death of the last survivor of the Prince's generation, tracing the transformation of Sicilian society with magnificent melancholy.
Why is The Leopard considered a masterpiece?
The Leopard is remarkable for several reasons: the quality of its prose, which is among the most beautiful in Italian fiction; the depth and sympathy of its portrait of a dying aristocratic world; the intellectual force of its meditation on change and how civilizations respond to it; and the fact that it was written by a man who had never published fiction before and who died before seeing it in print.
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