The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good/Good-. 1935. Dutton. 113th Special Printing. Illustrated.

The Story of San Michele (a villa built on the ruins of a Roman Emperor's villa in Capri) is a series of overlapping vignettes, roughly but not entirely in chronological order. It contains reminiscences of many periods of the author's life. He associated with a number of celebrities of his times, including Jean-Martin Charcot, Louis Pasteur, Henry James, and Guy de Maupassant, all of whom figure in the book. He also associated with the very poorest of people, including Italian immigrants in Paris and plague victims in Naples, as well as rural people such as the residents of Capri, and the Nordic Lapplanders. He was an unabashed animal lover, and animals figure prominently in several stories, perhaps most notably his alcoholic pet baboon, Billy.