User:Willnw/sandbox/The littlest witch

The littlest witch is a 1988 children's book written by Italian novelist Bianca Pitzorno. Over the years it has been translated into several languages, but made available to English-language readers only thirty years after its first publication: translated into English by Laura Watkinson and illustrated by Mark Beech, it was published by Catnip in 2018. In this humorous book the life of the ghastly Alfonso Terrible gets intertwined with those of the seven Zep sisters.

Plot
The heartless, selfish and money-grabbing Alfonso is the only heir to his great-uncle Sempronio’s fortune on one condition: within a year and a month from his uncle departure he has to marry a witch.

As he set off to find one, the reader is introduced to the Zep, who are welcoming their seventh daughter, named Sibylla. This newborn is not only the first redhead in the family, but also starts over time to display strange abilities: such as having no reflection, floating in water instead of sinking or flying on a broomstick. She also wins the affection of the surly pets of the family: the cat Mephisto, and the parrot Shut-Up, who after years of silence, starts to talk again and calls her Master.

To find a quiet place for them to study, two of the Zep sisters (Tabitha and Cassandra) start going to the library, where works Zac, the nephew of their nanny Diomira. There they meet an unpleasant and filthy man, who is doing a research on dark magic and witches. It’s Alfonso terrible, who has learned how to recognize a witch, but has not yet found one. Almost a year has passed since the death of his great-uncle (and also since Sibylla’s birth), and he’s afraid he’ll never find a witch to marry.

One day he reads the draft of an essay written by the Zep sisters, in which they describe all the odd abilities of Sibylla. Alfonso understands immediately that she is a witch, but on the paper he finds nor the name nor the age of this girl. Unfortunately, the book that had provide him with all information, had been partly eaten by a mouse, so Alfonso doesn’t know that a witch is always the youngest of seven sisters. When he goes to Zac to inquire about the girls, he finds on the floor a crossword written by Diomira, which contains all the names of the seven Zep sister: Wanda, Imelda, Tabitha, Cassandra, Helena, Emilia and Sibylla. Due to the weird, and involuntary acronym, he mistakenly takes it for a list of witches’ names.

Eventually, Alfonso manages to find the address of the Zep sisters, and starts to spy on them from the street. He is smitten by the oldest one, fourteen-year old Wanda, whose blonde hair has recently being turned into red by a chemical experiment of Imelda. He therefore mistakes her for the witch and starts unsuccessfully to pursue her. Even more determined, he kidnap her and Sibylla on their way to the pediatrician, and trap them in the library’s basement. Once there, he quickly realises his mistake and pursues the little Sibylla, who has started flying on a broom. Luckily for the girls both Mephisto and Shut-Up have sensed the peril, and have left home in search of the two sister. Once reached the library the cat has gone into the basement to attack Alfonso, while the parrot has flown to Zac calling for help.

The girls are freed and Alfonso goes to jail and loses his inheritance. Half of the money goes to the witch who has rejected him (Sibylla), and the rest to a long-distance relative of Sempronio’s wife (who turns out to be Zac).

Where Pitzorno got the inspiration for the story
While in the library, researching to write the biography of a famous monarch of Sardinia, Eleanor of Arborea, Pitzorno stumbled across the Malleus Maleficarum. This medieval book was considered to be the most authoritative book about Witchcraft: in it all the signs were listed for inquisitors to recognize a witch. Pitzorno had already written a book about the ordeal of a young peasant girl accused of being a witch in the 17th century, so she decided to write a funny novel instead in which she would ridicule the witch-hunt. A large part of the story takes place in the library: partly because it was the place in which Pitzorno’s interest for witches had sparkled, partly because she was asked by a children publishing house to write a book set in the library.

The samizdat
The publisher that had asked Pitzorno to write the story rejected the book on the ground that it was too long. Pitzorno then decided to type, illustrate and bind seventy copies of the story, which she lent to friends or gave to them as a present. This home version of The littlest witch was known among Pitzorno’s circle of friends as The samizdat, from the term used to indicate clandestine publications in the USSR. After a couple of years, one of these copies of the book ended up on the desk of the editor of an Italian publishing house for children (EL edizioni), who decided to publish it in 1988.