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 one of Britain's most important novelists of the early 20th century. He is best remembered for his novel Lady Chatterley's Lover, whose frank account of desire and challenge to the class system led to a prominent obscenity trial in the 1960s, setting a modern precedent for freedom of expression.