Skip to content
Little Novels of Italy — cover
Get your copy
Aeneas Press edition Edwardian

Little Novels of Italy

by Maurice Hewlett 1861–1923

The book, and the century it came out of.

Ten Italian tales of the Renaissance: a duchess, a poet, a knife, a bargain in a church porch. Hewlett was Keeper of the Land Revenue Records before The Forest Lovers made him famous in 1898; he wrote Italy as a place where beauty and murder are administrative facts, and his prose is deliberate, mannered and very much in command of itself. Illustrated with 44 full-page plates — paintings by Titian, Giorgione and da Verona among them.

Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was.
The first sentence of Little Novels of Italy
A note on this edition

Little Novels of Italy, by Maurice Hewlett, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 224 pages
Reading time
about 4 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501003231
The plates

44 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

The Tempest, Giorgione
The Tempest Giorgione 1506
Descent from the Cross, Girolamo da Cremona
Descent from the Cross Girolamo da Cremona 1475
Ambassadors Return to the English Court, Vittore Carpaccio
Ambassadors Return to the English Court Vittore Carpaccio 1498
The Funeral of Lucretia, Master of Marradi
The Funeral of Lucretia Master of Marradi 1500
Cain and Abel, Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli
Cain and Abel Bernardo di Stefano Rosselli 1474
The School of Athens, Raphael
The School of Athens Raphael 1512
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of Little Novels of Italy as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of Little Novels of Italy as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

Little Novels of Italy, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Love & Society shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501003231, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of Little Novels of Italy?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Maurice Hewlett's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 224 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
Little Novels of Italy
$4.99
Buy the ebook