About the Author
Giovanni Verga is one of the great writers of Italian fiction. Verga was born in Catania, Sicily, in 1840, and died in the same city in 1922. As a young man he left Sicily to work at literature and mingle with society in Florence and Milan, but eventually came back to spend his long declining years in his own place. His numerous books include the novelistic masterpiece The House of the Medlar Tree.