Di Lampedusa died in 1957 and The Leopard, his only novel, was published the following year. This atmospheric narrative of exquisitely limpid grace and beauty tells the story of a great Sicilian noble family living their lives out against the threatening backdrop of change represented by Garibaldi's invasion. Central to the tale is the Prince, Don Fabrizio, a restless, moody, sensual patriarch who dominates his family and also serves as a touching personification of all that is about to be lost. Despite its hurried conclusion, it is extraordinary because of the ease with which di Lampedusa balances the family's decay with the destruction of its society. Most remarkable of all, though, is the way in which the tentative romance between two young lovers is overseen by the envious Prince, caught between his own yearning and a growing sense of mortality. Shaped by Stendhal, The Leopard is a 20th-century classic perfected in the 19th-literary tradition.
