Mastro-don Gesualdo

Gesualdo Motta clawed his way from poverty to immense wealth through sheer grit, intelligence, and relentless labor. But in the rigid, honor-bound society of nineteenth-century Sicily, money alone cannot buy respect. Consumed by a desperate desire to climb the social ladder, he marries the impoverished noblewoman Bianca Trao—a union that brings him only scorn from the aristocracy and estrangement from his own family. As Gesualdo struggles to hold onto his fortune and his dignity, his daughter Isabella is caught in a web of arranged marriages and forbidden love, while a cholera epidemic sweeps the land, exposing the brutal truths beneath the surface of provincial life. Verga's masterpiece is a searing portrait of a man destroyed by his own success, a timeless story of ambition, class, and the human cost of striving. This faithful modern retelling brings the novel's vivid characters and moral urgency to today's readers in clear, natural English. Part of Timeless Classics.