Page:Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920).djvu/352

10 WORKS OF

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

Signor d’Annunzio is known throughout the world as a poet and a dramatist, but above all as a novelist, for it is in his novela that he is at his best. In poetic thought and graceful expression he has few equals among the writers of the day.

He is engaged on a most ambitious work — nothing less than the writing of nine novels which cover the whole field of human sentiment. ‘This work he has divided into three trilogies, and five of the nine books have been published. It is to be regretted that other labors have interrupted the completion of the series.

“This book is realistic. Some say that it is brutally so. But the realism is that of Flaubert, and not of Zola. There is no plain speaking for the sake of plain speaking. Every detail is justified in the fact that it illuminates either the motives or the actions of the man and woman who here stand revealed. It is deadly true. The author holds the mirror up to nature, and the reader, as he sees his own experiences duplicated in passage after passage, has something of the same sensation as all of us know on the first reading of George Meredith’s ‘Egoist.’ Reading these pages is like being out in the country on a dark night in a storm. Suddenly a flash of lightning comes and every detail of your surroundings is revealed.” —

The volumes published are as follows. Each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth … $1.65

THE ROMANCES OF THE ROSE

THE CHILD OF PLEASURE.

THE INTRUDER.

THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH.

THE ROMANCES OF THE LILY

THE MAIDENS OF THE ROCKS.

THE ROMANCES OF THE POMEGRANATE

THE FLAME OF LIFE.