The Trip (Il viaggio, 1928)

The twelfth Collection in of Stories for a Year had also been published previously by Bemporad in 1928, where it appeared under the same title.

Eleven of these fifteen stories were previously collected in two different volumes. “The Trip,” “The Red Booklet,” “Unaware,” “The Umbrella,” “Zafferanetta,” “Happiness,” “The Stuffed Bird,” “Farewell, Leonora!”, “The Light in the House Across the Street,” and “Let’s Get It Over With” all appeared in the edition Tercets (Terzetti; Milan: Treves, 1912). The volume And Tomorrow, Monday (E domani, lunedì; Milan: Treves, 1917) included the story “The Hand of the Indigent Invalid.”

Twelve of the fifteen stories first appeared in various magazines and journals: “Vexilla Regis…” came out in l’Italia, August 1897; “Youth” appeared in I Mattaccini, January 5, 1902; “The Umbrella” was first printed in Novissima, 1909; and “The Trip” was in the pages of La lettura, October 1910. The other eight were published in various issues of the Corriere della Sera, mostly in 1909-1911: “The Light in the House Across the Street,” December 12, 1909; “The Stuffed Bird,” January 16, 1910; “Let’s Get It Over,” July 19, 1910; “Farewell, Leonora!” November 6, 1910; “Happiness,” April 26, 1911; “Zafferanetta,” May 27, 1911; “The Red Booklet,” October 2, 1911; while “Puberty” came out some years later, in the issue of April 11, 1926.

The comedy As Before, Better than Before (Come prima meglio di prima) was adapted from “Vexilla Regis…” together with another story, (“La veglia”), which was part of the collection In Silence (In silenzio). The play was first staged in 1920.

“Farewell, Leonora!” provided some important material that was used in the elaboration of Pirandello’s famous comedy Tonight We Improvise (Questa sera si recita a soggetto), which had its Italian premiere in Turin on April 14, 1930, at the Teatro di Torino, performed by the company led by Guido Salvini.

The short story “The Trip,” on the other hand, provided the subject for a film adaptation by Gennaro Righelli, which shared the same title (Il viaggio, 1921).

The Trip includes fifteen short stories:

“The Trip” (“Il viaggio”)
“The Red Booklet” (“Il libretto rosso”)
“The Hand of the Indigent Invalid” (“La mano del malato povero”)
“Puberty” (“Pubertà”)
“Youth” (“Gioventù”)
“Unaware” (“Ignare”)
“The Umbrella” (“l’ombrello”)
“Zafferanetta” (“Zafferanetta”)
“Happiness” (“Felicità”)
“A Day Dawns” (“Spunta un giorno”)
“Vexilla Regis” (“Vexilla regis…”)
“The Stuffed Bird” (“L’uccello impagliato”)
“Farewell, Leonora!” (“Leonora, addio!”)
“The Light in the House Across the Street” (“Il lume dell’altra casa”)
“Let’s Get It Over With” (“Leviamoci questo pensiero”)