Don Finimodone (Paperback) | Released: 27 Jun 2019

The readers of "The Literary World," who often have the pleasure of reading her appreciative criticisms of current literature, will especially welcome the incidental personal information which Mr. Stedman gives concerning the brilliant and accomplished writer of these six stories. Though bearing the Italian name of her husband, of whom she was very soon bereaved after marriage, Mrs. Cavazza is a native and resident of Portland, Maine. The impression which these most sympathetic stories of Calabrian humble life will undoubtedly make is that their author has studied the Italian peasantry on the spot. It is, however, a very striking testimony to Mrs. Cavazza's imaginative power that she has written these stories, which seem to breathe the very atmosphere of Italy and to enter into the very heart of Calabrian peasant life, without having set foot on Italian soil. Of the six tales here included, "A Calabrian Penelope " was printed some years ago in the New Princeton Review, and, if we mistake not, was the first story from Mrs. Cavazza's pen to be printed in any of the larger periodicals. "A Trumpet Call" appeared in the Atlantic a few months since, and "The Story of Cirillo" more recently in Two Tales; the other three, "Don Finimondone," "The Tree of the Bride," and "Princess Hummingbird" -- a story of Italian patrician life -- are, we believe, here printed for the first time.Each one of these sketches shows the sure touch and the constructive instinct of a born artist in letters. They begin firmly, go on attractively, and end in no lame or impotent conclusion. The choice of particulars in the descriptive passages, the very lifelike conversations, and the occasional epigrammatic sayings remind one of the best work of the most finished short story tellers of the day in France and America. Mrs. Cavazza has worked in this very readable volume a new field which neither Hawthorne, Mr. Marion Crawford, nor Mr. H. B. Fuller has occupied. Whether she writes of Don Finimondone, the old miser who was never happy unless he were predicting evil, and so gained the name of Don End-of-the-world; or of Comare Pina, the Penelope of Calabria, who had such faith in her long-absent Andrea's sureness of aim; tells the deeply touching story of Cirillo, the peasant-baron; relates Compare Girolamo's unfortunate wedding experience; describes Tonio's "Trumpet Call," which could raise his dear Rosina even from the bier; or lightly tells the international episode of the Princess Hummingbird, poisoned too long by her cruel bird-dress -- Mrs. Cavazza carries steadily along with her the interest and admiration of her readers, who will hope to enjoy much more such excellent work from her pen.--"The Literary World," Volume 23