6 h 43 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 6 h 43 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What hides beneath good manners when desire and jealousy begin to take control?
In Human Documents, Federico De Roberto turns private lives into close studies of human behavior. Love, envy and jealousy drive these short stories, pressing against the control people believe they have. Ordinary rooms and daily habits become places where strong feelings grow, often beneath a calm surface.
De Roberto writes in the tradition of Italian naturalism and verismo, looking at people with the care of a scientist studying a specimen. His focus is the gap between what people show and what they feel. These concentrated tales ask you to look past kind words and social rules, toward the feelings they conceal.
What you’ll discover
- Passion in ordinary rooms See how love and desire gather force within the small routines of private life.
- The pressure of jealousy Watch strong feelings unsettle people who believe they remain in control of themselves.
- Beneath the polite surface Look beyond good manners to the hidden feelings that appearances cannot fully contain.
- A clear, unsparing gaze Encounter fiction that studies human behavior closely, without turning away or offering easy comfort.
- Meaning in the silence Read slowly and notice how much these dense stories leave for you to uncover.
Who will love it
Readers who love tales of passion, jealousy and vanity, and who enjoy watching a mind at work. Fans of Verga, Maupassant and Bourget will find a sharp Sicilian voice.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Passion becomes a case study
- Morning changes the sound of feeling
- Jealousy reaches into an unchangeable past
- Laughter keeps a lover at bay
- A face needs its hidden story
- Duty cannot silence a private heart
- Words cannot keep pace with feeling
- Old letters trouble a present marriage
- Explanations leave room for judgment
Who’s who
- Engineer FerrieriA middle-aged engineer who admits that he once wrote a desperate suicide letter, and who insists that rhetoric and truth can coexist.
- Andrea LudovisiA playwright past forty who loves the baroness and cannot stop torturing himself over the men who came before him.
- Costanza di FastaliaA Neapolitan baroness, separated from her husband and judged by society, who wants to be loved without being questioned.
- Caterina BorischoffA bored and mocking Russian princess who answers a young writer's love letter with laughter and a lurid account of her past.
- Luigi AlbaniA composer and sharp critic with an empty face, who tells his painter friend the story of the passion that nearly destroyed him.
- Duchess of NeliA faithful wife of thirty-five who sees white hair in her mirror and decides she must act before it is too late.
- Father LadislaoA young priest of noble birth, admired as a saint, who doubts his own worth and meets a woman he has never forgotten.
- Roberto BerniA married man whose old love letters call back a dead lover on the day his wife tells him of their child.
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Human Documents in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Human Documents
by Federico De Roberto · 1888
A man writes his last letter at night, and at dawn a dropped letter and ordinary street life change everything.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“Both are true!”
In short
Can a love letter written at midnight survive the morning? In the first pages of Human Documents, a man pours out a confession of love, jealousy and despair, then walks out at dawn with a revolver.
Human Documents at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 15 min3 h 20 min fast, 5 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 60,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1888by Federico De Roberto
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A midnight letter meets the morning
The collection opens with a letter written in the night to a woman who has tortured the writer with her charm. He tells her he will be dead when she reads it. His words swing wildly between insult, tenderness and blessing.
He says she tried her perfume, her smile and her voice on a hermit for the pleasure of the test. He swears jealousy is not his motive, then imagines tearing the heart out of the man she loves. A moment later he begs the Madonna to forgive his raving.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1888
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4 h 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
De Roberto, Federico. Human Documents. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/human-documents.
De Roberto, F. (2026). Human documents. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/human-documents (Original work published 1888)
De Roberto, Federico. Human Documents. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/human-documents.
@book{deroberto2026human,
author = {De Roberto, Federico},
title = {Human Documents},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/human-documents},
note = {First published 1888}
}
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What is Human Documents by Federico De Roberto about?
It is a collection of short stories about love, jealousy, honor and self-deception among educated people. Each story explores one feeling through a letter, a duel, a confession or a diary, and shows how a mind sees itself.
What is the preface to Human Documents?
It is a letter from De Roberto to his publisher Treves, written in Catania in October 1888. It defends naturalism, explains why psychological analysis is a form of imagination, and shows how the stories answer his critics.
Are the stories in Human Documents connected?
They are separate tales, but they share themes. Many are told through letters, diaries or a friend's story, and several show the same event from two sides. Together they study how people explain their own feelings.
The author
Federico De Roberto
1861–1927 · Italian novelist
Italian writer.
“Both are true!”
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