Physical description

Hard cover book. Pipistrello
Author: Ouida/Marie Louise de la Ramée
Publisher: George Robertson
Date: 1880
Further Information: Red Cloth hardcover with lettering and patterning to spine in black. The spine has a Library label with an inscription.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT 823 OUI
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service. Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service. The Flyleaf has the name "Louise Ranie" written in blue ink.

Summary

Pipistrello is the Italian word for 'bat'. The title story is set in Italy, a frequent setting for Ouida's work, as she lived there for much of her adult life. Like much of Ouida's fiction, the story serves as social commentary on class division, human cruelty and the tragic nature of innocence.
Set in a rural Italian community, the story centres on a poor, marginalised individual nicknamed Pipistrello ('the Bat') because of their nocturnal, outcast existence, poverty or physical appearance. Its core explores themes of alienation, social prejudice, unrequited devotion, and the exploitation of the poor by wealthier or more cynical figures.
The collection of six short stories contains several narrative pieces typical of Ouida's later style, which shifted from her earlier, highly romantic high-society melodramas (such as Under Two Flags) toward melodramatic realism, animal welfare and sympathy for peasant life. The stories are a critique of industrialisation and greed, and the opposition to modern greed and the harshness of societal structures on vulnerable people and animals. The work is dramatic, emotional, and often tragic where pure intentions are tested by a unforgiving world.