Bompiani Editore

In 1929, after serving as the general secretary of Arnoldo Mondadori and as Unitas' editorial director, Valentino Bompiani founded his own publishing house in Milan. Given its keen interest in current trends and main currents of literature and thought in the early twentieth century as well as its ability to design projects that met the needs of different categories of readers, Bompiani soon became one of the most important and influential realities of the Italian publishing scene. Of primary importance to the new brand was also its openness to overseas cultural and literary expressions.

In 1934 the Idee Nuove series was born. Edited by Antonio Barfi, it was a project of considerable importance which enabled Italian readers to approach the work of several contemporary American philosophers, including George Plimpton Adams, John Elof Boodin, Mary Whiton Calkins, Durant Drake, John Dewey, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, Evander Bradley McGilvari, William Pepperell Montague, Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur Kenyon Rogers, George Santayana, Roy Wood Sellars and Charles Auguste Strong.

Between 1938 and 1940, Bompiani published four works of John Steinbeck: Uomini e topi (Of Mice and Men) translated into Italian by Cesare Pavese, Pian della Tortilla (Tortilla Flat) translated into Italian by Elio Vittorini, La battaglia (In Dubious Battle) translated into Italian by Eugenio Montale and Furore (The Grapes of Wrath) translated into Italian by Carlo Coardi. 

In 1941 the Americana anthology was published. Edited by Elio Vittorini, the volume featured some of the most famous and significant works by American authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jack London, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville and William Faulkner. It was thanks to the introduction written by Emilio Cecchi that the book could be reprinted after it was seized by the fascist censorship in April 1942.

It should be remembered that Bompiani was the sole Italian editor of Patricia Highsmith. Between 1950 and 1972 Bompiani published numerous novels by Highsmith, including Sconosciuti in treno (Strangers on a Train), Vicolo cieco (The Blunderer), Il talento di mister Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley), Acque profonde (Deep Water), Quella dolce follia (This Sweet Sickness), Il grido della civetta (The Cry of the Owl) and Il sepolto vivo (Ripley Under Ground). Bompiani was also the first Italian publisher of Philip Roth. His Addio, Columbus e cinque racconti (Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories) which was reprinted in 1969 under the title La ragazza di Tony inaugurated the series I numeri. In 1965 and 1968 Bompiani published the first two novels by Thomas Pynchon, V and L'incanto del lotto 49 (The Crying of Lot 49).

Very significant is the section dedicated to translated Italian authors of the Bompiani Historical Library. It is preserved at current headquarters of RCS Libri in Milano and contains numerous works by Italian authors translated into English and published in the USA between 1949 and 1972, including Alberto Moravia, Umberto Eco, Corrado Alvaro, Andrea Caffi, Giuseppe Cassieri, Tonino Guerra, Raffaele La Capria, Luigi Malerba, Elio Vittorini, Ercole Patti, Ugo Pirro, Mario Pomilio and Bonaventura Tecchi.
 

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