Rome Stories

by Jonathan Keates (Editor)

From Plutarch to Pasolini, from Henry James to Alberto Moravia, this collection of classic tales of the Eternal City draws on a wide range of brilliant writers from ancient times to the present. A gorgeously jacketed hardcover anthology. EVERYMAN'S POCKET CLASSICS.

During its three-thousand-year history Rome has been an imperial metropolis, the capital of a nation, and the spiritual core of a world religion. For writers from antiquity to the present, however, it has long served as a realm of fantasy, aspiration, and desire. Captivating and lethal at one and the same moment, its beauty both transfigures and betrays those in thrall to it. Rome Stories explores the city's fateful impact through the writing of classical historians, Renaissance sculptors, Enlightenment poets and philosophers, American, British, and French novelists, and the writers of modern Italy.

Genres: Short Stories, History, Italy, Anthologies

416 pages, Hardcover

Published March 7, 2017

About the author

Jonathan Keates, is an English writer, biographer, novelist and Chairman of the Venice in Peril Fund. Keates was educated at Bryanston School and went on to read for his undergraduate degree at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Reviews

[شمس]

A selection of short stories and extracts about, or set in, the Eternal City.
__________
Livy — The Revolt of the Tarquins (from Ab Urbe Condita; Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt)

Plutarch — The Murder of Julius Caesar (from Life of Caesar; Translated by Sir Thomas North)

Edward Gibbon — The Story of Rienzi (from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Benvenuto Cellini — Imprisonment, Espace, Recapture (from his Autobiography; Translated by George Bull)

Goethe — Extracts from his Italian Journey (Translated by W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer)

Stendhal — Vanina Vanini (Translated by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff)

Nathaniel Hawthorne — Extracts from The Marble Faun

George Eliot — Extracts from Middlemarch

Henry James — Daisy Miller

Edith Wharton — Roman Fever

Alberto Moravia — Extracts from Roman Tales (Translated by Angus Davidson)

Pier Paolo Pasolini — A Night on The Tram (Translated by John Shepley)

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Rome Stories" is the latest offering from the Everymans Pocket Classics series and upholds the brand's high standards for quality. The goal of the EPC is straightforward - offer a one-volume collection of classic writings on a specific topic. Other volumes cover a range of interesting topics - fishing, London, stories from the kitchen, fatherhood - and authors. This volume, edited by Jonathan Keates, provides a selection of tales from Rome, perhaps the Western world's most romantic, significant city.

Selections include tales from the ancients (Livy, Plutarch's take on the murder of Julius Caesar) to the classic (Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Eliot) to the more modern (Alberto Moravia, Pier Paolo Pasolini). Each tale features Rome as a character as much as a setting. Eventually, it smacks you in the face - all this is taking place in the same darn city. Giants walking in the footsteps of demigods provide an abundance of riches. This volume may be a gateway drug, as these selections will send you scurrying to your favorite bookseller for copies of the full treatment.

The book is also a nice hardback edition, solidly bound and including a ribbon for a page marker. Fitting snugly into a large-ish pocket, this volume is perfect for travel.

A must for a traveler or a traveler at heart - highly recommended.

[Randy Lowe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, probably. very interesting premise and collection, though it inevitably feels uneven. i enjoyed the stylistic evolution of the writing as the stories moved chronologically up through time (starting with Livy and ending, cleverly, cinematically, sleazily, with Pasolini). a bit of a slog at times, but the Edith Warton itself was 5 stars and worth the entire read.

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twelve stories set in Rome, presented in chronological order. Some articles are excerpts from books, such as The Story of Rienzi, from Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The first story is Livy's The Revolt Against the Tarquins, which takes place before Rome became a Republic. The rape of Lucretia is the highlight of the piece, and further reading is needed to illuminate the significance of this transgression, and the events that led to the overthrow of the Tarquins; I hope to read more about this in The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan, which is one of the books waiting in the wings for me. The last story is A Night on the Tram by Pier Paolo Pasolini, from his book Roman Nights and Other Stories. A downer of a story depicting the squalid and sordid side of Rome in the fifties.

The stories in between are fillers: much like 3 or 4 of the mediocre stories in a Reader's Digest book collection of 4 or 5 stories. An excerpt from Benvenuto Cellini is mildly interesting, but Stendhal's Vanina Vanini was a drag, ditto an excerpt from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. And I don't see why they bothered to include J.W. Von Goethe's Italian Journey here.

I have read 3 of the excerpts/stories in this collection: an excerpt (which doesn't delight as much as it does when I read the entire book) from George Eliot's Middlemarch narrating stuffy old Mr Causobon's and Dorothea's honeymoon in Rome, where they bump into Causobon's nephew Will; Henry James's novella Daisy Miller, which I had already read some 15 years ago but realize now how badly I was in need of a discerning rereading of such a well-written narrative; and my favorite, and likely too, my favorite short story by Edith Wharton, Roman Fever. This I read and thoroughly enjoyed just 2 or 3 months ago, from an anthology of her short stories, but having reread it more carefully now, that ending made me jump up the sofa with a victorious whoop!

[Francisco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Going all the way from an excerpt of Livy's History of Rome to a Pier Paolo Pasolini short story, the book, as the title says, collects stories and histories about Rome. Having such a large scope, from ancient to medieval and renaissance all the way to post-war Rome, it is only natural that the stories are disparate and your mileage might vary. 

From me, I could take or leave the classical antiquity stuff, the excerpt from Gibbon's Decline and Fall is particularly dull, but right after that you get Benevenuto Cellini's prison diaries which are pretty astonishing in their coolness. Cellini comes across as a total badass with his dagger murders and prison escapes and slightly insane experiences. 

Other more modern highlights are Henry James' Daisy Miller and particularly two small vignettes by Alberto Moravia, from his Roman Tales, which are both funny and poignant. I'd say about half the tales here are really enjoyable and others not so much, this is the case with the Middlemarch example, for example which is too removed from the novel to give the same enjoyment that it would in its proper context. Still some gems in the mix here.

[Giuliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable selection of stories which all share the common theme and setting of the Eternal City. This book contains tales from different eras which give a valuable glimpse into life in Rome across many centuries. With stories taken from as far back as Livy all the way to Pasolini, both the seasoned Rome aficionado and someone just taking an interest in Roman history and society will find this book to their liking.

[Robert Frecer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light ancient layer of bread followed by a heavy Romantic sandwich core, this reads like a classic Anglo-American travelogue of Rome - and going down quite easily in the process. But this is thrown out of balance by two Italian stories at the end, ruining the aftertaste - and making the reader acutely aware at how much of Roman life was in fact missed by the whole book when it only concerned itself with American heiresses.

[Marcus Barker]

I havnt finished it. Just annoying that's it sitting on my "currently reading" when I am not reading jt