The writing magic of Luigi Pirandello ( 1867-1936) per-
meated all of his work. To understand it you must recognize it
as arising from his religious and philosophical background.
For him life was a universal entity with innumerable facets,
and his personal interpretation of these dazzled readers and
audiences in his lifetime and has done so ever since. In
Italian, the beauty of his language and the sound of his words
are so melodious as to entrance the ears, and the infinite in-
tricacies of his thinking and its literary expression puzzle,
exasperate, and, finally, illuminate the senses. His art was and
is extraordinary -- even more so now, twenty-odd years after
the death of this Nobel Prize winner in literature.

There are long and justly earned encomiums of his whole
creative life in histories, encyclopedias, biographical diction-
aries, and even in separate biographical-critical works. There-
fore that kind of foreword to these three great plays would be
redundant. Marta Abba, the translator, was for many years
the star of a company dedicated to playing and interpreting
the works of Pirandello. She has contributed a factual memoir
which explains a great deal about Il Maestro, as she reverently
calls him. Through her energy and vitality, which are enor-
mous, there has come into existence The Pirandello Society, of
which this volume carries the first imprint. This Society will
continue to foster the reading, enjoyment, publication, and
producing of Pirandello's great dramatic works. A prize for
the best essay written in English on an over-all critical appre-
ciation of Pirandello's contribution to art, literature, and the
theatre, with particular emphasis on the plays contained in

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