The Adventures of Pinocchio.
Carlo Collodi · The Italian Reader
Collodi's complete Le avventure di Pinocchio — all 36 chapters with Carlo Chiostri's classic engravings and a literal English gloss beneath every line of the original Italian.
434 pages · Paperback & Kindle · Intermediate
— the famous opening of chapter one — not a king, but a piece of wood
The complete novel.
Thirty-six chapters of the original 1883 text, organised into five thematic parts.
Everyone knows the puppet; almost no one has met him in Italian. Collodi's 1883 original is stranger, funnier and darker than the versions that came after — and its episodic chapters, each a complete adventure, are perfectly shaped for a nightly reading habit in a new language.
This edition presents all thirty-six chapters, gently updated for modern readability, with a strictly literal gloss beneath each line. Wherever possible the glosses use English words sharing a root with the Italian, so Collodi's nineteenth-century Tuscan teaches you how Italian builds a sentence while the story pulls you forward. Carlo Chiostri's classic engravings appear throughout.
- 01All 36 chaptersThe complete, unabridged novel in five thematic parts
- 02Chiostri engravingsThe classic public-domain illustrations throughout
- 03Method introductionA clear guide to reading interlinear text
- 04Word-by-word glossCollodi's word order preserved beneath every line
Why this edition.
Episodes made for learners
Each chapter is a self-contained adventure — a natural session length that keeps the habit going and the vocabulary compounding.
The real Pinocchio
Collodi's original is a sharper, wilder book than its adaptations. You read it as Italian children first did — in Italian.
Cognates as stepping stones
The glosses favour English words that share roots with the Italian, turning Collodi's Tuscan into a bridge rather than a wall.
— the complete opening of chapter one
The details.
- Series
- The Italian Reader
- Language pair
- Italian–English interlinear
- Format
- Paperback & Kindle
- Print length
- 434 pages
- Illustrations
- Carlo Chiostri
- Source text
- Le avventure di Pinocchio (1883), complete
- Level
- Intermediate (B1)
- Published
- May 2026
- ASIN
- B0H31RPBK3
More from the press.
Every edition is glossed by hand, word by word, and printed on demand by Amazon.
Read The Adventures of Pinocchio with every word translated beneath the original.
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