Established 2014 · London
Ravelstein
Rare Books, Signed First Editions & Letters
RC
❦ ❦ ❦
Biography
Italian

Roberto Calasso

1941 — 2021

Roberto Calasso was an Italian writer, publisher, and intellectual whose unique body of work — a series of interconnected books spanning Greek mythology, Vedic literature, Kafka, Baudelaire, the Aztecs, and the nature of the modern world — constitutes one of the most ambitious literary projects of the late twentieth century. He was also the president and publisher of Adelphi Edizioni, one of the most distinguished publishing houses in Europe. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988) — a retelling of Greek mythology — is his most celebrated work.

Past sales0
PeriodContemporary
NationalityItalian
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Roberto Calasso (1941–2021) was born on 30 May 1941 in Florence, Italy. His father was a professor of law and his mother was a professor of German literature. He joined Adelphi Edizioni in 1962, when the publishing house was founded, and eventually became its president and editorial director, shaping one of the finest literary catalogues in Europe.

Life and Career

The Ruin of Kasch (La rovina di Kasch, 1983) — a labyrinthine meditation on Talleyrand, sacrifice, and modernity — established his method: essayistic, erudite, and structured not by argument but by association and narrative.

The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia, 1988) — a retelling of Greek mythology that treats the myths not as quaint stories but as the deepest account of human nature available — was an international bestseller and his best-known book. It reads the gods, heroes, and monsters of Greek myth with the same attentiveness and seriousness that a literary critic brings to a novel.

Ka (1996) — about Indian mythology and the Vedas — continued the project. K. (2002) — about Kafka — was a departure into literary criticism. The Celestial Hunter (Il cacciatore celeste, 2016) explored the mythology of the hunt. The entire series — eventually comprising eleven books — forms what Calasso called “a work in progress that started in 1983.”

He died on 28 July 2021 in Milan.

Major Works and Themes

Calasso wrote about myth, ritual, sacrifice, and the sacred as the deepest structures of human thought — and about what happens when modernity abandons them. His books are demanding, brilliant, and utterly unlike anything else.

Key Works

  • The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988)
  • Ka (1996)
  • The Ruin of Kasch (1983)

Collecting Calasso

Italian firsts (Adelphi) are the true first editions. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1993, Knopf, English) brings $15–$40.