The best Italian classics for learners, by level

Italian is a good language for reading early, because so many of its most loved classics were written for children and are still read by Italian kids today. So you can start on real, unsimplified books that are genuinely easy.

Every book here is in the Passage library. Levels are the ones Passage uses, and word counts are for the Passage edition, rounded.

Beginner: books Italian children grow up with

• Le avventure di PinocchioCarlo Collodi · 1883Beginner

  The wooden puppet who lies, runs away and keeps getting into trouble. Darker and funnier than the films. Short chapters, everyday vocabulary, and probably the most common first novel for learners of Italian.

• CuoreEdmondo De Amicis · 1886 · about 84,000 wordsBeginner

  A year in the life of a Turin schoolboy, written as his diary, with a short story each month (one of them, “Dagli Appennini alle Ande”, became a famous cartoon). Sentimental, but the entries are short and the Italian is clean.

• Il giornalino di Gian BurrascaVamba · 1912 · about 68,000 wordsBeginner

  The diary of a nine-year-old troublemaker whose pranks wreck every family occasion. Very funny, very conversational.

• C'era una volta…Luigi Capuana · 1882 · about 35,000 wordsBeginner

  Fairy tales by a Sicilian novelist who wrote them for his nieces and nephews. Kings, ogres and enchanted animals, told simply.

• Il fantasma di CantervilleOscar Wilde, in Italian · 1887 · about 21,000 wordsBeginner

  An American family moves into a haunted English castle and refuses to be scared. If you know the story in English, it's an easy way in.

Cuore opens with five words and no verb:

The second sentence also introduces the passato remoto (passarono, “went by”), the literary past tense you'll meet in almost every Italian novel. In speech, most Italians would say sono passati.

Intermediate: short novels and plays

• La locandieraCarlo Goldoni · 1753 · about 26,000 wordsIntermediate

  A comedy: a clever Florentine innkeeper makes a woman-hating nobleman fall for her. A play, so it's all dialogue, and short.

• Storia di una capineraGiovanni Verga · 1871 · about 31,000 wordsIntermediate

  Letters from a young girl, destined for the convent, who spends a few months in the countryside and falls in love. Short and emotional.

• Il fu Mattia PascalLuigi Pirandello · 1904 · about 76,000 wordsIntermediate

  A man reads in the paper that he's dead, and decides to start a new life under a new name. Witty, and Pirandello's Italian is surprisingly modern.

• Le tigri di MompracemEmilio Salgari · 1900 · about 90,000 wordsIntermediate

  Sandokan, the pirate prince of Borneo, falls in love with the niece of his British enemy. Pure adventure; Il Corsaro Nero is in the same style.

• Canne al ventoGrazia Deledda · 1913 · about 60,000 wordsIntermediate

  An old servant devoted to a family of impoverished noblewomen in Sardinia. Deledda won the Nobel Prize in 1926; her prose is simple and full of landscape.

• I promessi sposiAlessandro Manzoni · 1840 editionIntermediate

  Two young lovers in 17th-century Lombardy, kept apart by a local tyrant. The founding novel of modern Italian. Long, with long sentences, so read it near the end of this stage.

Advanced: the great novels

• I MalavogliaGiovanni Verga · 1881 · about 88,000 wordsAdvanced

  A Sicilian fishing family loses everything. Verga writes as the villagers speak, with their proverbs and their grammar, which makes it hard and unforgettable.

• Uno, nessuno e centomilaLuigi Pirandello · 1926 · about 46,000 wordsAdvanced

  A man notices his nose is slightly crooked, realizes everyone sees him differently, and unravels. Short, philosophical, odd.

• La coscienza di ZenoItalo Svevo · 1923 · about 142,000 wordsAdvanced

  A man writes his memoirs for his psychoanalyst, starting with his many attempts to quit smoking. Funny and modern, with long reflective passages.

• DecameronGiovanni Boccaccio · 1353Advanced

  A hundred stories told by young Florentines escaping the plague. Medieval Italian, but many stories are short and bawdy enough to keep you going.

• La Divina CommediaDante AlighieriAdvanced

  Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in verse. The hardest book on this list and the one many learners dream of reading. Go slowly.

A reading path

1. Pinocchio
2. C'era una volta… or Il fantasma di Canterville
3. Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca or Cuore
4. La locandiera or Storia di una capinera
5. Il fu Mattia Pascal
6. Le tigri di Mompracem or Canne al vento
7. I promessi sposi, then I Malavoglia

Use the page test on each before you commit.

Tips for reading Italian classics

• Learn to recognize the passato remoto. Novels narrate in it: disse (said), fece (did), venne (came), ebbe (had).
• Expect old contractions and accents. Older texts write pei for per i, de' for dei, and poichè or nè where modern Italian has poiché and né.
• Watch for the formal Voi. Many 19th-century characters use voi where modern Italian uses Lei.
• Don't fight the dialect. Verga and Deledda use regional words on purpose. Get the gist and keep reading.

Questions