Giovanni Verga was born in Catania, Sicily, in 1840, and died in the same city in 1922. As a young man he left Sicily to work at literature and mingle with society in Florence and Milan, but eventually came back to spend his long declining years in his own place. He wrote in many genres and produced several classics of Italian literature, including the novel The House of the Medlar Tree. His short stories about Sicily are widely agreed to be his masterpieces. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was an English novelist, poet and essayist. He spent much of his time in Italy before and after the First World War, and translated many works by Giovanni Verga.