Carlo Collodi

Though one of the best-known books in the world, Pinocchio at the same time remains unknown--linked in many minds to the Walt Disney movie that bears little relation to Carlo Collodi's splendid original. That story is of course about a puppet who, after many trials, succeeds in becoming a "real boy." Yet it is hardly a sentimental or morally improving tale. To the contrary, Pinocchio is one of the great subversives of the written page, a madcap genius hurtled along at the pleasure and mercy of his desires, a renegade who in many ways resembles his near contemporary Huck Finn. Pinocchio the novel, no less than Pinocchio the character, is one of the great inventions of modern literature. A sublime anomaly, the book merges the traditions of the picaresque, of street theater, and of folk and fairy tales into a work that is at once adventure, satire, and a powerful enchantment that anticipates surrealism and magical realism. Thronged with memorable characters and composed with the fluid but inevitable logic of a dream, Pinocchio is an endlessly fascinating work that is essential equipment for life. Geoffrey Brock's acclaimed new translation is reissued in an edition for children with over fifty full-page watercolors by Fulvio Testa.

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"Pinocchio," in Carlo Collodi's original version, is an adventure-filled, menacing fairy tale with a moral. Made by the woodcarver Geppetto, the puppet Pinocchio dreams of becoming a real child. But his unrestrained curiosity, dishonesty, and selfishness put him in constant peril. As he journeys from the deceptive "Field of Miracles," where he plants gold coins to make them grow, to the land where lazy boys turn into donkeys, Pinocchio's path is paved with mistakes, willfulness, and danger.And all the while his nose keeps growing bigger and bigger and bigger every time he tells a fib, so all the world can see what a liar he is ...

The original, unabridged Pinocchio in a beautifully illustrated hardcover edition. Carlo Collodi's 1883 story is an astonishing work of fantasy, even richer and more wildly imaginative than the famous film that Disney made of it. The Everyman's edition--the only one in hardcover--brings back the color-illustrated translation of 1916 that captures the vivid inventiveness of Collodi's original. Here is the endearing wooden puppet, always dreaming of becoming a boy and always tumbling into trouble: kidnapped, robbed by a cat and a fox, turned into a donkey, escaping from an enormous smoking serpent and a green-skinned ogre, rescuing his father from the belly of a mile-long fish, haunted by the ghost of a talking cricket, watched over by a fairy with turquoise hair, and, time and again, betrayed by his lie-sensitive nose.

Pinocchio, a little wooden puppet carved out of a piece of wood by the old carpenter Geppetto, longs to be a real boy. But Pinocchio has a lot to learn as he embarks on many naughty, mischievous and challenging adventures, before he can truly become a good little boy.

Everyone knows Pinocchio, the walking, talking wooden puppet carved from a table leg. Sold to a circus, then to a man who tries to drown him for his donkey-skin, he miraculously turns back into a puppet and goes in search of his 'father' (whom he must rescue from the belly of a giant dogfish ...).

Den fattige dockmakaren, Gepetto, skapar en dag en docka som börja leva. Men Pinocchio, som blir dockans namn, vill helst av allt bli en riktig pojke. Och för att bli det behöver han lära sig skilja på rätt och fel. Till sin hjälp får Pinocchio ett samvete, i form av en syrsa, och en näsa som växer varje gång han ljuger. Carlo Collodi ( 1826 - 1890 ), var en italiensk barnboksförfattare som startade sin karriär som skribent av satirpolitiska texter under slutet av 1860-talet. Men det är med berättelsen om den talande kaspersdockan, skriven 20 år senare, som han är ihågkommen till denna dag. Bertil Mollberger läser upp berättelsen med stor inlevelse och humor.