The Story of the Betrothed
By Umberto Eco
Illustrations by Marco Lorenzetti
The most famous Italian novel, retold for children
Lombardy, 1628, a time of oppressive Spanish occupation of Northern Italy, and of the Thirty Years’ War. The young lovers Lorenzo and Lucia, both from peasant families, are planning their wedding. However, the villainous Don Rodrigo has designs on Lucia, and the lovers are forced to flee their village. Their dangerous journey in exile takes them through one of the most dramatic epochs in Italian history, filled with war, famine and plague – will they ever be able to find happiness together?
Those were hard times. The greater part of Lombardy, the region of Italy in which our story takes place, was under Spanish rule, which rested on the support of an assortment of Italian nobles great and small, who in return had licence to commit all manner of abuse. They often lived in Milan, but also in dark castles and little palaces perched high above towns and villages and protected by their bravoes.
104pp
Published 10/04/2014
ISBN 9781782690221
Pushkin Children’s Special Hardback
200mm x 194mm
£14.99
About Save the Story
The Story of Captain Nemo is one of ten titles in the Save the Story series published by Pushkin Children’s in 2013 and 2014. Save the Story is a library of favourite stories from around the world, retold for today’s children by some of the best contemporary writers. The stories they retell span cultures (from Ancient Greece to nineteenth-century Russia), time and genres (from comedy and romance to mythology and the realist novel), and they have inspired all manner of artists for many generations.
Save the Story is a mission in book form: saving great stories from oblivion by retelling them for a new, younger generation.
The Save the Story series includes:
Don Juan by Alessandro Baricco
Cyrano de Bergerac by Stefano Benni
The Nose by Andrea Camilleri
Gulliver by Jonathan Coe
The Betrothed by Umberto Eco
Captain Nemo by Dave Eggers
Gilgamesh by Yiyun Li
King Lear by Melania G. Mazzucco
Antigone by Ali Smith
Crime and Punishment by A. B. Yehoshua