The pieces brought together in this volume originally appeared in the publications listed below. Where both manuscript and printed copy are available, preference has been given to the manuscript version.
Fables and Stories
1943-1958
'The Man Who Shouted Teresa', manuscript dated 12 April 1943.
'The Flash', manuscript dated 25 April 1943.
'Making Do', manuscript dated 17 May 1943; published in La Repubblica, 17 September 1986.
'Dry River', manuscript dated October 1943.
'Conscience', manuscript dated 1 December 1943.
'Solidarity', manuscript dated 3 December 1943.
'The Black Sheep', manuscript dated 30 July 1944.
'Good for Nothing', 1945-6, original manuscript title; planned as a novel and adapted into a short story. It was published under the title 'What Noah Wasn't Like' in a small review as yet unidentified since we have only the pages with this story.
'Like a Flight of Ducks', Il Settimanale, II, 18, 3 May 1947.
'Love Far from Home', proofs with corrections in the author's hand, 1946.
'Wind in a City', proofs with corrections in the author's hand, 1946.
'The Lost Regiment', L'Unità, 15 July 1951, definitive version in the collection, Fourteen Stories, Mondadori, Milan 1971.
'Enemy Eyes' (manuscript title); L'Unità, 2 February 1952, under the title 'The Enemy's Eyes'.
'A General in the Library' (manuscript title); L'Unità, 30 October 1953, under the title 'The General in the Library'.
'The Workshop Hen', I Racconti, Einaudi, 1954.
'Numbers in the Dark', I Racconti, Einaudi, 1958.
'The Queen's Necklace', published under the title 'Fragment of a Novel' in Everybody's Days, Edindustria editoriale S.p.A., 1960. The author's note states: 'The following pages are taken from a novel I worked on between 1952 and 1954 but never finished. Through the picaresque adventures of a lost pearl necklace the novel was meant to offer a satire of various levels of society in an industrial city during the years of post-war tension.'
'Becalmed in the Antilles', Città aperta, I, 4-5, 25 July 1957; the author's note of 1979 was written in response to a request from Felice Froio.
'The Tribe with Its Eyes on the Sky', manuscript with a signed note by the author, as follows: 'October 1957 -- after the Soviet missile, before the satellite. For Città aperta, but not published.'
'Nocturnal Soliloquy of a Scottish Nobleman', L'Espresso, 25 May 1958; the editor's note accompanying the publication claims, doubtless after consultation with the author: 'In this fable the writer Italo Calvino expresses his assessment of the Italian situation on the eve of the elections. It's a story à clef, where the MacDickinsons, or Episcopalians, represent the Christian Democrats; the MacConnollys or Methodists, the Communists, and the MacFergusons, or Presbyterians, the non-aligned centre parties. The Scottish nobleman is one of the latter.' The text here published is taken from Calvino's typescript with corrections in the author's hand.
'A Beautiful March Day', Città aperta, II, 9-10, June-July 1958.
Tales and Dialogues
1968-1984
'World Memory', Club degli Editori, Milan, 1968.
'Beheading the Heads', Il Caffè, XIV, 4, 4 August 1969; the author's note says: 'The following pages are sketches for chapters of a book I have been planning for some time, a book that aims to offer a new model for society with a political system based on the ritual execution of the entire governing class at regular intervals. I still haven't decided what shape the book will have. Each of the chapters here presented could be the opening of a different book; hence the numbers given do not indicate any particular order or progression.'
'The Burning of the Abominable House', Playboy, Italian edition, 1973.
'The Petrol Pump' (manuscript title); Corriere della Sera, 21 December 1974, under the title 'La forza delle cose' (The Force of Circumstances).
'Neanderthal Man', in the collection, Impossible Interviews, Bompiani, Milan 1975.
'Montezuma', in the collection, Impossible Interviews, Bompiani, Milan 1975.
'Before You Say 'Hello'', Corriere della Sera, 27 July 1975.
'Glaciation', text written in response to a request from the Japanese liquor producer, Suntori, first published in Japanese, then in Corriere della Sera, 18 November 1975.
'The Call of the Water', written as introduction to Aqueducts Past and Present, by Vittorio Gobbi and Sergio Torresella, published by Montubi, Milan, 1976.
'The Mirror, the Target' (manuscript title); Corriere della Sera, 14 December 1978, under the title 'There's a Woman behind the Target'.
'The Other Eurydice', September-October 1980.
'The Memoirs of Casanova', stories written to accompany a collection of etchings by Massimo Campigli published by Salomon and Torrini, 1981. The author's note, in the third person, states: 'After Invisible Cities, a catalogue of imaginary cities visited by a resurrected Marco Polo, Italo Calvino begins another series of short stories attributed once again to a famous Venetian, in this case Giacomo Casanova. Like the previous book, this too is a 'catalogue', but this time of 'amours'.' Published in La Repubblica, 15-16 August 1982.
'Henry Ford', typescript with corrections in the author's hand, dated 30 September 1982. Television screenplay, never produced.
'The Last Channel', La Repubblica, 31 January 1984.
'Implosion', 13 August 1984.
'Nothing and Not Much', Washington Post, 3 June 1985.