The Leopard is the one and only novel Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote, starting it at age 60. When he finished it, he sent it to Mondadori, it was rejected, and then Lampedusa died, unpublished. Fortunately, The Leopard was soon picked up by another Italian publisher, and this fine work continues to outlive its author. This is a novel of a regime in decay–an aristocratic regime in Sicily–as it is overwhelmed by the Garibaldi-led drive toward Italian unification. Our protagonist is a dreamy lesser nobleman who is punctilious about the privileges of rank but indifferent to the rot at rank’s […]