In 1957, Giuseppe Tomasi, Prince of Lampedusa, the last member of a great Sicilian family, died childless, impoverished and unknown, leaving behind him the recently completed manuscript of a novel. The following year the novel, "The Leopard", was published to great acclaim. For a quarter of a century Italian and foreign scholars were denied access to the reclusive writer's papers until, following a meeting with Lampedusa's adopted son, David Gilmour succeeded in gaining permission to work in the writer's last home in Sicily. There, and in the nearby ruin of the Palazzo Lampedusa, he found many letters, diaries, notebooks and photographs which had not seen the light of day since Lampedusa's death. In "The Last Leopard", David Gilmour brings to life not only an enigmatic writer of genius, but the vibrant Sicily and Italy of his youth, the Europe of the inter-war years and the slow, careful distillation of an undoubted masterpiece.
- ISBN10 1843430576
- ISBN13 9781843430575
- Publish Date 17 April 2003 (first published 1 November 1988)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 4 June 2010
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint The Harvill Press
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 240
- Language English