My Ten Years' Imprisonment - Silvio Pellico

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On October 13, 1820, Silvio Pellico (1789-1854) was arrested on suspicion of being a member of the Carbonari--a secret society of revolutionaries opposed to Austria's repressive foreign occupation of Italy. After a perfunctory trial, he was condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment with hard labor.

The account of his ten years' imprisonment (Le Mie Prigioni, 1833) is a classic of Italy's struggle for liberty. It was hugely popular, translated into every European language, and inspired widespread sympathy for Italy's nationalist movement, dealing a deadly blow to the cause of the Austrian government.

Transcending mere memoir, Pellico's story is a poetic and moving declaration of trial and tribulation, and a meditation on solitude, friendship, and faith. Said one reviewer: "It breathes a spirit of such profound resignation, such exalted peace, such heroic piety that the stoniest heart must be touched by it."

Said another: "Every page contains a practical illustration of the powerful aids of a sound and genuine philosophy, based upon religion, in fortifying the mind, and enabling it to triumph over the most appalling disasters. Every page breathes the purest spirit of philanthropy, and may be quoted as a specific against the cynicism and irritability which blacken and degrade human nature, and hold it up to scorn and contempt."

Wisdom and Woe is a philosophy and literature discussion group dedicated to exploring the world, work, life, and times of Herman Melville and the 19th century Romantic movement. The group is free and open to anybody with an interest in learning and growing by "diving deeper" into "time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and impossible matters."