The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

First published in 1962, this novel is narrated by a Jewish man from Ferrara who looks back on the late 1930s, when racial laws closed ordinary clubs to him and he was drawn into the walled garden of the wealthy Finzi-Contini family. He plays tennis there, uses their library, and becomes attached to Micol, the daughter, while her brother Alberto drifts through illness and study. The garden, the house, and the town's Jewish community form a closed world as restrictions tighten. The book is a memory novel of class, desire, and approaching persecution, not a military history of the war that followed.

Bound in dark green paper, cover printed with a wrap-around cream, black and whiote picture. Pale green endpapers. Dark green slipcase.