What do you think?
Rate this book
The Last Leopard: A life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
David Gilmour's biography of Giuseppe di Lampedusa unearths the life story of the creator of 'The Leopard', one of the great novels of the 20th century.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
28 people are currently reading
294 people want to read
About the author
David Gilmour
14 books33 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Sir David Robert Gilmour, 4th Baronet is a Scottish author. He is the first son of Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, 3rd Baronet, and Lady Caroline Margaret Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch. HRH Princess Margaret was his sponsor at his Christening. He became the 4th baronet on the death of his father in 2007.
Gilmour was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford.
Gilmour is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and four children.
Sir David Robert Gilmour, 4th Baronet is a Scottish author. He is the first son of Ian Gilmour, Baron Gilmour of Craigmillar, 3rd Baronet, and Lady Caroline Margaret Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Buccleuch. HRH Princess Margaret was his sponsor at his Christening. He became the 4th baronet on the death of his father in 2007.
Gilmour was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford.
Gilmour is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and four children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 24, 2025
This short biography shows how The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Summary & Study Guide one of Italy's most important novels, arose from the Lamoedusa's particular social position and reflects his literary interests. Born in 1896, Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa saw, in his lifetime, the decline of the Sicilian nobility in which his family was firmly placed. He was a prince, and the "last" of a family with a leopard in its crest.
Author Gilmour shows how Lampedusa's family, like other noble families of Sicily, had been losing their lands and wealth to invasion, nature, changing times and as Lampudsa would have it, lack of initiative. After World War II, despite his reduced financial condition, he still had a title and a wealthy wife and continued the leisurely life of a noble: a life of travel, family visits, theater and café lunches.
Gilmour has read and interpreted for the reader notes Lampedusa left behind. They are from a survey course in European literature that he delivered to a small group of young people. They show him to appreciate history and its importance to literature. Late in life, with encouragement from his wife, he took to writing. As is always recommended, he wrote what he knew. The book shows how it was written and how its writing affected the writer.
There is plenty of detail for thought. Lampedusa never learned to drive, he took the bus or was driven, sometimes to view lost family property. He hand wrote the manuscript and it was typed for him as he read it aloud in what appears to be the off hours of a legal office.
The novel became not only a classic of Italian literature but also a movie staring Burt Lancaster (who speaks Italian in the film).
His relationship with his loyal wife is a paradox. Because he went out on a limb to court her (she was married) and married her outside the customs of his family, it seems strange that the pressures of war (not passion) prompted their living together. She was obviously ahead of her time, a Freudian psychoanalyst who set up a practice in their eventual home in Palermo.
Gilmour gives a good introduction to this author and makes me excited about reading the novel.
Author Gilmour shows how Lampedusa's family, like other noble families of Sicily, had been losing their lands and wealth to invasion, nature, changing times and as Lampudsa would have it, lack of initiative. After World War II, despite his reduced financial condition, he still had a title and a wealthy wife and continued the leisurely life of a noble: a life of travel, family visits, theater and café lunches.
Gilmour has read and interpreted for the reader notes Lampedusa left behind. They are from a survey course in European literature that he delivered to a small group of young people. They show him to appreciate history and its importance to literature. Late in life, with encouragement from his wife, he took to writing. As is always recommended, he wrote what he knew. The book shows how it was written and how its writing affected the writer.
There is plenty of detail for thought. Lampedusa never learned to drive, he took the bus or was driven, sometimes to view lost family property. He hand wrote the manuscript and it was typed for him as he read it aloud in what appears to be the off hours of a legal office.
The novel became not only a classic of Italian literature but also a movie staring Burt Lancaster (who speaks Italian in the film).
His relationship with his loyal wife is a paradox. Because he went out on a limb to court her (she was married) and married her outside the customs of his family, it seems strange that the pressures of war (not passion) prompted their living together. She was obviously ahead of her time, a Freudian psychoanalyst who set up a practice in their eventual home in Palermo.
Gilmour gives a good introduction to this author and makes me excited about reading the novel.
discarded
August 29, 2018DNF. This biography received two awards, and the only rationale for this I see is the fact it uses the writer's private archives. Don't get me wrong - I hate conjectural biographies, and this is their opposite. It is, however, written in the flattest way possible - a progression of places and names, delivered in the droning, unchanging voice, and conveying something of the actual feel of the time only in very rare moments of inattention. One-third into the book I felt no interest in its subject, no need to know what happened next, no involvement whatsoever. I will keep it on the shelf, though, in case I ever feel like teaching "The Leopard".
May 6, 2025
I have read this before. I was equally impressed on my first read with this meticulously researched biography of the Leopard. Anyone who has read the Leopard or the last Prince of Lampadusa should read this.
July 23, 2017
For those who want to submerge into the world of "The Leopard", which is considered to be one of the greatest novels in Italian literature, the biography of Lampedusa is a must. A very interesting story of the last leopard, who have not lived to witness the recognition of his work as a literature chef d'œuvre.
March 26, 2024
Upon reading the magnificent Leopard, I set out to find everything else that Lampedusa had written. Unfortunately, only three short stories and a brief childhood memoir have been published, so the only other thing left to read was this biography.
Biographer David Gilmour has done a splendid job of covering everything in Lampedusa's life in a lucid and well-organized narrative that both retains its objectivity and sympathises with him. Sympathy because, it turns out, despite his literary prowess, Lampedusa’s personality was quite afflicted. He was extremely shy, reticent and socially awkward; a nerd who spent most of his waking hours buried in books, copies of which he carried everywhere with him. He lacked self-confidence, opened up only to his close relatives (cousins) and was micromanaged by his pampering mother until she died. His monosyllabic answers to other people's attempts at having a conversation with him could today even be described as a soft form of autism. Like roughly five generations of his lineage, Lampedusa emerged out of a privileged aristocracy without doing a day’s worth of real work. With the abolition of feudalism in Italy in 1812 and the unification of the country in 1861, many aristocrats found themselves for the first time in history in a new social order in which they struggled financially and became embroiled in bitter familial infighting over inheritance. They were resigned to living mostly off the rents of their ever-dwindling estates and Lampedusa was no exception. The difficulties he felt from this situation were exacerbated when the family’s Palazzo in Palermo was severely damaged by Allied bombing, an event which worsened his occasional bouts of depression.
Despite focusing virtually all of his writing on his native Sicily, he was very much the opposite of an ordinary Sicilian; both in outward appearance and in his deep capacity for intellectual observation and devotion to principle, about the lack of which he criticized his fellow compatriots. Beneath the frozen tip of this iceberg floated a large edifice of literary excellence. He’d read almost everything there was to read and had broken it down, categorized it in minutiae. His own writing abilities were therefore a natural extension of his comprehension and seeped out of him without exertion. Ultimately, it was his characteristic lack of confidence and personal afflictions which deprived us of a wider array of literary gems.
Gilmour ends with a great literary analysis of the Leopard which amplified my understanding of it. In reviewing and rating a biography, one must keep in mind to divorce the biographical work from the subject’s life, irrespective of how dull or interesting it was. Bearing this in mind, this is one of the finest biographies I have ever read.
Biographer David Gilmour has done a splendid job of covering everything in Lampedusa's life in a lucid and well-organized narrative that both retains its objectivity and sympathises with him. Sympathy because, it turns out, despite his literary prowess, Lampedusa’s personality was quite afflicted. He was extremely shy, reticent and socially awkward; a nerd who spent most of his waking hours buried in books, copies of which he carried everywhere with him. He lacked self-confidence, opened up only to his close relatives (cousins) and was micromanaged by his pampering mother until she died. His monosyllabic answers to other people's attempts at having a conversation with him could today even be described as a soft form of autism. Like roughly five generations of his lineage, Lampedusa emerged out of a privileged aristocracy without doing a day’s worth of real work. With the abolition of feudalism in Italy in 1812 and the unification of the country in 1861, many aristocrats found themselves for the first time in history in a new social order in which they struggled financially and became embroiled in bitter familial infighting over inheritance. They were resigned to living mostly off the rents of their ever-dwindling estates and Lampedusa was no exception. The difficulties he felt from this situation were exacerbated when the family’s Palazzo in Palermo was severely damaged by Allied bombing, an event which worsened his occasional bouts of depression.
Despite focusing virtually all of his writing on his native Sicily, he was very much the opposite of an ordinary Sicilian; both in outward appearance and in his deep capacity for intellectual observation and devotion to principle, about the lack of which he criticized his fellow compatriots. Beneath the frozen tip of this iceberg floated a large edifice of literary excellence. He’d read almost everything there was to read and had broken it down, categorized it in minutiae. His own writing abilities were therefore a natural extension of his comprehension and seeped out of him without exertion. Ultimately, it was his characteristic lack of confidence and personal afflictions which deprived us of a wider array of literary gems.
Gilmour ends with a great literary analysis of the Leopard which amplified my understanding of it. In reviewing and rating a biography, one must keep in mind to divorce the biographical work from the subject’s life, irrespective of how dull or interesting it was. Bearing this in mind, this is one of the finest biographies I have ever read.
October 2, 2011
A very fine biography achieving what a biography ought to: Bring the subject fully to life and charge one to return and reread the works you've read and find those you haven't.
The tale of Di Lampedusa, beautiful written with great skill and sympathy, made relevant and rewarding the story of this Sicilian Aristocrat, anonymous literary genius, the last of his line, and a man whose life wound down like a 17th-century Pietro Tommaso Campani clock, but ended with a flash of brilliance.
One passage has remained with me in the week since I've finished the book:
"Death came to him later than he had once hoped but sooner than he then wanted, destroying him not after he had succumbed to despair, not at the final stage of his disillusionment with life but, tragically, at the most active and vital period of his existence."
If you've read THE LEOPARD and enjoyed it, I believe Gilmour's book will enhance your pleasure 100 fold.
The tale of Di Lampedusa, beautiful written with great skill and sympathy, made relevant and rewarding the story of this Sicilian Aristocrat, anonymous literary genius, the last of his line, and a man whose life wound down like a 17th-century Pietro Tommaso Campani clock, but ended with a flash of brilliance.
One passage has remained with me in the week since I've finished the book:
"Death came to him later than he had once hoped but sooner than he then wanted, destroying him not after he had succumbed to despair, not at the final stage of his disillusionment with life but, tragically, at the most active and vital period of his existence."
If you've read THE LEOPARD and enjoyed it, I believe Gilmour's book will enhance your pleasure 100 fold.
July 22, 2011
Gilmour provides an empathetic and informed perspective. Among the highlights of the book are the generous extracts from Lampedusa's notes for a literature course he shared with his adopted son and a few friends. It would be wonderful to see these in print. The last chapter on the afterlife of The Leopard was not so engaging as the rest of the book.
July 8, 2008
If you loved "The Leopard" you will enjoy this book about di Lampedusa.
June 12, 2019
Gracias a Guilmour me entero a cabalidad de el gran Guisepe Tomasi de Lampedusa.Que vida atravezada por las flechas de todas las circunstancias para terminar con la familia Lampedusa.
November 19, 2017
Gilmour, David, The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (London: Collins Harvill, 1988) – Fraaie biografie van de Siciliaanse schrijver van het meesterwerk uit de Italiaanse literatuur. Lampedusa sprak veel talen en was een indrukwekkend literatuurliefhebber en -kenner. Als telg van een adellijk geslacht in neergang was zijn leven weinig opwindend. Gilmour heeft bij zijn onderzoek gebruik kunnen maken van brieven en andere documenten uit familiebezit; hij heeft zelfs het nodige materiaal opgeduikeld bij bezoeken aan de ruines van het Lampedusa-paleis in Palermo. Boeiend is voorts zijn verhandeling over de discussie die Il Gattopardo opriep bij de publicatie eind jaren vijftig, kort na de dood van de auteur (op zestigjarige leeftijd). Cijfer: 8. Gelezen: 2007.
October 19, 2020
I read this book right after reading Andrea Vitello’s excellent biography of Lampedusa, which David Gilmour frequently quotes. And yet Gilmour’s biography is also an excellent one, which I would say fully complements Vitello’s one. Gilmour was fortunate enough to benefit from Tomasi’s widow’s full cooperation in reconstructing missing parts of the author’s life, as well as from the adoptive son’s keen memory. Though not an Italian himself, Gilmour displays a very fine understanding of Sicily, as well as of the Italian literary milieu. Furthermore he fully penetrates the author’s psychology and the essence of his message, when he writes: “ Lampedusa’s work will survive long after the last palaces of Palermo have gone, because he wrote about the central problems of the human experience”.
January 19, 2025
An intriguing biography of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the obscure Sicilian prince who, in middle age, quietly crafted a literary masterpiece that was published and became a sensation only after his death. If you were captivated by The Leopard, do yourself a favour and read this fascinating account of the life of its elusive author.
December 11, 2023
A great little biography of Lampedusa with an interesting reception history of his only novel. I enjoyed reading this book almost as much as I enjoyed reading The Leopard itself.
August 6, 2019
2 stelle e mezzo
Read
October 6, 2021Expertly and extensively researched, a fascinating account of the writer's life. Essential reading for anyone who loves Il Gattaopardo.
September 9, 2023
One of my ten favorite books ever
May 7, 2025
Zazdroszczę Lampedusie, że miał tyle czasu na czytanie. Bo o tym głównie dowiemy się z tej książki: co czytał książę (i czy w orginale).
June 2, 2025
Interessant maar een beetje 'droog' -
July 18, 2015
David Gilmour has produced a fantastic read of the life of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, last male hereditary of an aristocratic Sicilian family.
Tomasi's love-hate relationship with Sicily and Italy and his admiration for France and especially England become apparent throughout the book. His personal life, like that of so many of the decaying aristocrats in Sicily, was beset by tragedy and misfortune. Just in time before illness struck down this remarkable man, he put pen to paper and showed the world he is not only a great writer, but a connoisseur of Sicilian life and the island's remarkable history. David Gilmour has done a stellar job in providing insights into Tomasi's life and of setting in which he lived.
Tomasi's love-hate relationship with Sicily and Italy and his admiration for France and especially England become apparent throughout the book. His personal life, like that of so many of the decaying aristocrats in Sicily, was beset by tragedy and misfortune. Just in time before illness struck down this remarkable man, he put pen to paper and showed the world he is not only a great writer, but a connoisseur of Sicilian life and the island's remarkable history. David Gilmour has done a stellar job in providing insights into Tomasi's life and of setting in which he lived.
August 18, 2016
The Almost Lost Leopard
A concise view of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa which is as much a short history of Sicily and its aristocracy, as it is the author of one of the most important European novels, of the last 70 years. It benefits from both research and co-operation with Lampedusa's heir and friends. A must for admirers of Illinois Gattopardo.
A concise view of Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa which is as much a short history of Sicily and its aristocracy, as it is the author of one of the most important European novels, of the last 70 years. It benefits from both research and co-operation with Lampedusa's heir and friends. A must for admirers of Illinois Gattopardo.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews