The Complete Works of Primo Levi: Pakiet

All Good

I purchased this on Amazon.com, which was significantly (35 pounds) cheaper than the UK, even including shipping fees!Almost 3000 pages of Primo Levi's works, including essays, short stories, poems and prefaces he wrote for other works. A fantastic investment if you have any interest in how the Holocaust has been remembered over the years. Levi was a tremendous writer, and I have enjoyed many of the more sci-fi themed short stories as well as his longer more famous writings.If (like me) you have spent many hours trawling secondhand book shops in order to find writings by Levi that are no longer available in English, this is a fantastic purchase. The three hardback books are collected together in a slipcase, and the paper is of high quality.

Complete works of Primo Levi in a box set of three high-quality hardbacks, good translations. Excellent value at £33.20. Advertised as used, but quite clearly new - someone probably dropped the box, causing a very small dent in it and the cover of the first volume. Delivered three days after placing the order.This was an impulsive purchase after my book club chose "The Periodic Table"

This will keep me busy for some time. The new translations are an improvement apparently, but the Americanisms are a little distracting (eg ‘gotten’). There are some interesting items that have been included which appeal, and show a little more of Primo Levi’s literary talent. He deserves to be discussed alongside Virgil, Dante and Petrarch.

For the first time, all of the writings of Primo Levi are available in the English language.I do not believe anyone captures the nightmare of the Holocaust in quite the same wayas Primo Levi and in addition one has the pleasure of making oneself familiar with his poetry and essays.A real treat.

Excellent product! Absolute bargain at 40 quid including delivery. Very fast delivery. Well pleased with it.

Good value

Even since I read The Periodic Table I have been collecting all of Levi's work in hardcover especially the American editions as they were printed on better stock paper (Levi's books in the UK- The Drowned and the Saved, for example is now horribly browned with acid rot). If I had known, that in the future, in my lifetime there would be this stupendous 3 volume box set published in hardcover in America, beautifully bound, designed and printed on good acid free paper that will last, well I could have saved myself time and money. Needless to say I bought this the minute i saw it. I ordered from the US Amazon site, where including postage it cost me £63.00.As an essay at the end of Vol III points out, Levi had three problems with publication in the English speaking world. The first was lack of interest even into the 1980's. The Periodic Table was rejected by 20 American publishers and finally needed the critic Irwing Howe's influence to see it printed by Schocken Books. Even more incredible is the fact that an editor at Simon and Schuster was able to secure the American rights to 7 of Levi's other books for just $1500 each!The second problem, was that many of Levi's short essays (which I love) and stories were printed in English in various titles, almost like edited highlights and sometimes lifted from different Italian books that Levi had supervised.The third problem that would have scuppered any Collected Works ever being put together after his death was the complicated tangle of publishing rights held between seven different parties in US and UK! We can only thank that the publisher Norton finally sorted it all out so that we can all finally own this beautiful edition. It is a labour of love from everyone concerned. Editor Ann Goldstein for example has been labouring at it since 2004.If you scroll down you will find a reviewer (from amazon.com) helpfully listing all the different translators. What you will note, if you know Levi's works in English, is how many new translations they have commissioned for this volume. I guess this was the only way around the right's issue but i did wish they could have at least kept one of Raymond Rosenthal's translation in there. After all it was his translation of The Periodic Table that alerted the rest of the world to this unique writer. All of a sudden everyone realised what an important writer he was too- If This Is A Man is one of the 20th Century's most important works, and will live on, as a classic (albeit a painful one) in human culture for all time. Similarly William Weaver had originally translated The Wrench and it would have been good if they had honoured both him and Rosenthal here. But as I have mentioned, it may have to do with original rights to these translations not being available.Therefore, here you have 3 volumes with everything Levi wrote, freshly translated (except for If This Is A Man- where Stuart Woolf has revised his 1959 translation based on a more recent definitive revised Italian text), in chronological order, with helpful introductions, notes, afterwords by many translators, chronology, maps etc etc. In other words EVERYTHING! including his wonderful poetry translated by Jonathan Galassi, who a few years ago had huge acclaim for his English translation of Montale's poems. What a glorious thing this 3-vol set is!. I will probably start reading and re-visiting these works again now! (There is also a brief introduction- a page and a half- by Toni Morrison- which was not necessary. The introductions by editor Goldstein and the informative afterwords and the 3 essays at the end of the last volume were more than enough! Morrison also gets billing on the slipcase. Sad to think Levi still needs a big American name to prop him up in English print).I will end by quoting novelist and essayist Cynthia Ozick (I wish they had asked HER to do the introduction!) who says this on the slipcase box: 'The Complete Works of Primo Levi is an act that transfigures publishing into conscience at its most sublime". Show your support and buy this box of marvels without any hesitation!