The Leopard

The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. 'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it' Rick Stein In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them. 'Every once in a while, like certain golden moments of happiness, infinitely memorable, one stumbles on a book or a writer, and the impact is like an indelible mark. Lampedusa's The Leopard, his only novel, and a masterpiece, is such a work' Independent INCLUDES RECENTLY DISCOVERED NEW MATERIAL 'Perhaps the greatest novel of the century' L.P. Hartley 'The poetry of Lampedusa's novel flows into the Sicilian countryside...a work of great artistry' Peter Ackroyd

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa was a Sicilian nobleman, Duke of Parma and Prince of Lampedusa. He was born in Palermo in 1896 and died in Rome in 1957. He lived the life of a literary dilettante, was familiar with the great literatures of the world, and was widely travelled. Much of Lampedusa's other work is collected in The Siren and Other Writings.