Sterminator Vesevo

(Vesuvius the great exterminator)

In translating this book by Matilde Serao, I have felt as if none of its beautiful local colour, of its warmly felt and vivid description should be altered by an attempt on my part to give to its pages a perfect English intonation. One thing would have been, unavoidably, the loss of the other, as no language can render in all its truth and form, the warm and deep expression of southern Italian imagination and sentiment. Thus, this diary retains the deep impression of the moment in which it was written, while the bold strokes of colour and the tender pathos of some of its pages, bring, once more forward to public admiration, the brilliant name of Italy foremost woman writer, Matilde Serao