Why Read the Classics?

In this collection of 36 essays on 'his' classics, Italo Calvino explores several original definitions of what makes a 'classic', and surveys works that range in time from antiquity and early modern Europe, through the masters of the 19th century novel and his early American mentors, to his contemporaries. WHY READ THE CLASSICS? constitutes Calvino's literary canon and sheds fascinating light on the key texts that influenced this major twentieth-century novelist, confirming his position too as one of the most interesting essayists and critics of his time.