Three Italian Epistolary Novels looks at the development of a literary genre that flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and counted among its illustrious authors Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. These translations of three Italian novels by Foscolo, De Meis, and Piovene - never offered before in a single study - reflect social, historical, and stylistic aspects through 150 years of Italian literature from the birth of a touching romantic story to the time of the new currents in Italy and the period of World War II. The book is particularly suited for studies in Italian, European, and comparative literature programs.