Excerpt from An Italian Reader: With Notes and Vocabulary When one presents a new text-book there should be good reasons for such presentations; mere multiplication of texts is undesirable. The main reason for compiling this book lies in the fact that for American students there is a lack of satisfactory material for first readings in present day Italian. In such collections as are w available the best modern sources are neglected. This book is, therefore, an attempt to meet a deficiency and to give an introduction to modern Italian literature. The material is so abundant that the only difficulty is one of choice. Accordingly, this collection does t purport to be the best possible selection; it is a selection of the best. For the most part, the readings are taken from short story writers, but other literary forms have t been neglected. Each selection is complete in itself, and the arrangement of the selections is in order of increasing difficulty, both as regards structure and ideas. When necessary the text has been slightly abridged. After due consideration, I thought it best to include a vocabulary. The latter I have tried to make as pertinent as possible, thereby avoiding a multiplication of tes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.