1826-1890 · Italian journalist and children's writer, author of The Adventures of Pinocchio
About Carlo Collodi
Carlo Collodi was the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini (1826-1890), a Florentine journalist and civil servant who took his pseudonym from his mother's home village of Collodi in Tuscany. He volunteered in the Italian wars of independence of 1848 and 1859, edited and wrote for satirical papers, and in later life turned to books for children, translating Perrault's fairy tales into Italian (1876) and writing the Giannettino school readers before Pinocchio made his name permanent.
1881-1883 (Italian; book 1883) · 19th Century · Novel
In a Tuscan village the carpenter Mastro Cherry finds a log that cries out when he strikes it, and gladly hands it to his poor friend Geppetto, who carves it into a marionette and names him Pinocchio. The puppet runs off before his feet are finished, gets Geppetto taken to jail, and kills the Talking Cricket with a hammer when it warns him that disobedient boys come to grief.