First Italian Readings

E-text prepared by Chuck Greif and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Heath's Modern Language Series
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SELECTED AND EDITED, WITH NOTES AND VOCABULARY
Professor of Romance Languages, Ohio State University
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO
Copyright, 1897.
By B. L. Bowen.
2DO
IN the study of Italian, as in that of French, doubtless the best method of learning to read... is to read . Copious reading should accompany and supplement the study of the essentials of grammar; and it is to supply material for such early reading that the present book has been prepared. The chief object has been, not to offer select specimens that should be representative of Italian literature, but to furnish easy, interesting stories and sketches for beginners.
Complete selections have in all cases been preferred to extracts; and these selections have, as far as possible, been arranged according to their degree of difficulty. In the interests of the class-room—as the editor understands them—a special endeavor has been made to introduce stories that are bright and animated in tone, and to avoid, for the most part, the pathetic and melodramatic. It is, perhaps, not superfluous to add that in this respect there has been much to avoid.
The first two stories, from the French of Perrault, have been chosen because of the familiarity of their contents and because of their readableness. At this day it is certainly not necessary to offer any apology for the publication of translations in a reader of this scope. Translations of this kind have done such excellent service in French and German readers, that it is safe to say they can be equally useful in Italian.