Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa. First edition thus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991. Everyman's Library #23. Both inclipped dust jacket (in mylar wrapper) and hardcover are in Fine condition. No writing or markings found in this unread copy, 300 pp. Translated from Italian by Archibald Colquhoun and an Introduction by David Gilmour.
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of aristocratic decline set against the backdrop of 19th-century Sicily. This Everyman’s Library edition (No. 23), the first thus from Knopf in 1991, presents the novel in a finely bound hardcover with a sewn binding, acid-free paper, and ribbon marker — built for a lifetime of reading.
The novel follows Prince Fabrizio of Salina, a larger-than-life character who watches the world change around him with melancholy wisdom. Political upheaval, social transformation, and the inevitable erosion of tradition pulse through the pages in language as lush and elegant as the Sicilian landscape itself.
A cornerstone of modern European literature, The Leopard stands with War and Peace and The Magic Mountain as a timeless meditation on time, power, and mortality. An essential addition to any serious literary collection.
Leopard (Il Gattopardo) by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was originally published in 1958 in Italy — posthumously, a year after the author’s death.
It was first published in English in 1960 by Collins and Harvill Press in the UK and by Pantheon Books in the U.S.
