Luigi Pirandello was born to affluent parents in 1867 in a small provincial town in Sicily. He was sensitive and ill-suited to follow his robust and occasionally violent father into the family business of sulphur mining, and led a rather sheltered life until he went to college, first in Rome, and then in Bonn, Germany. There he began to bloom intellectually, and he led an active social life, though he longed for his own sunny climate. His happiness lasted until his arranged marriage with the daughter of one his father's business partners. Antonietta was an unsuitable wife for Pirandello, but he immediately fastened his illusions of love onto her. Early in their marriage, Pirandello's father's firm failed, forcing Pirandello to take a teaching job to support his young family. Antonietta had been jealously overprotected by her father, and with the added financial stress, she, in her own...