Italo Svevo (1861-1928), born Aron Ettore Schmitz in Trieste, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is most well known for his novel _La coscienza di Zeno_. His work for the theater is much less well known and has not, until now, been made widely available in English (translations of some of his plays have appeared only sporadically and are now hard to find). Included here are _An Unpublished Play_ and _Before the Ball_.

"Reading Svevo," says Peruvian Julio Ramón Ribeyro in his diary, "I have had the impression of reading my own work, not what I'm writing now, but what I would have written if I had been born in Trieste seventy years ago."