Arnoldo Mondadori Editore

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore was an early prospective publisher of The Leopard: it received the novel in 1956 and sent back an enthusiastic response that implicitly promised publication, while warning of delays. The book ultimately appeared with Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, but Mondadori’s later publication of Lampedusa’s complete works helped extend the novel’s textual history by making a cut fragment available.

The 1956 submission

By May 1956, Lampedusa was seeking a publisher for the six-part typescript of The Leopard. Five sections, followed by a sixth, were sent to Count Federici at Arnoldo Mondadori Editore with a covering letter from Lucio Piccolo. The typescript was carefully corrected and bore signs of the author’s own work, including handwritten insertions, part and page numbering, and notes placing each part in its month and year. Its submission therefore represented more than an exploratory draft: Lampedusa had used this version while actively trying to secure publication.

The reply came by return of post. Arnoldo Mondadori Editore thanked Piccolo for bringing an interesting work to its attention and responded with marked enthusiasm, while indicating that existing commitments meant publication would take time. Lampedusa later described himself as pleased by the response, which seemed to promise that the novel would be published. The warm reception raised expectations, but did not secure the book’s appearance during his lifetime.

Recognition without a publishing decision

The manuscript also passed through the hands of readers at Arnoldo Mondadori Editore and Elio Vittorini, who first read it for the publisher and later gave it a more attentive reading for Giulio Einaudi Editore. The account distinguishes their literary recognition from their commercial judgment: they understood that The Leopard was the work of a genuine writer, yet no publication followed from Mondadori’s initial consideration.

Vittorini’s personal reply to Lampedusa conveyed a qualified assessment but no offer to publish. He was not wholly opposed to the novel and suggested that Arnoldo Mondadori Editore keep the writer in view. However, through an error, the employee handling the manuscript returned it with a routine rejection letter rather than conveying Vittorini’s more provisional judgment. The episode complicates the later image of a simple critical rejection: the account presents a missed commercial opportunity shaped partly by publishing procedure, even as Lampedusa’s chance to see the novel in print was running out.

Publication elsewhere and textual authority

The novel eventually reached publication through Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore. After Elena Croce forwarded the manuscript to Giorgio Bassani, then an editor at Feltrinelli, Bassani visited Palermo in March 1958 to investigate whether the text he had received was complete and reliable. He obtained the 1957 manuscript and used it to amend proofs of the seven parts already set in type; he also used that manuscript as the sole source for Part V, Father Pirrone Pays a Visit. The resulting 1958 edition was based principally on the typescripts, checked against the final manuscript for variants, and edited in other respects, including a radical revision of punctuation.

In 1968, Carlo Muscetta publicized hundreds of differences between the manuscript and the printed text. Although the variants did not substantially change the novel, the controversy prompted a new edition based on the 1957 manuscript, published in 1969 and later established as the standard Italian text. The account identifies that version as the one Lampedusa named in his will as definitive. This editorial history clarifies the limits of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore’s role: it was an early recipient and evaluator, while the contested first edition and the subsequent restoration of the author’s final manuscript belonged to the history of publication elsewhere.

Later publication and recovery of a fragment

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore re-entered the novel’s publication history in 1995 with Il Meridiano Lampedusa, a volume containing the author’s complete works. It included an initial fragment of Part IV that Lampedusa had cut. The fragment, found in his Palermo library in a foolscap exercise book marked Notebook No. 7 of the First Draft, was presented as Fragment A and could be given the descriptive title Don Fabrizio and Bendicò. Its inclusion made material from an abandoned stage of the novel available alongside the author’s completed work.

Further handwritten and typescript materials relating to The Leopard were discovered in 1998 among the papers of Princess Alessandra Wolff-Stomersee, Lampedusa’s widow. Those discoveries included The Salina Canzoniere, a distinct fragment concerning Don Fabrizio’s concealed passion for Angelica. The account treats these findings as completing the novel’s publishing history. Mondadori’s 1995 volume thus did not settle every question of textual transmission, but it brought a significant cut fragment into the record and formed part of the later recovery of the novel’s surviving drafts.