The Priest's Hat
The Priest's Hat is an 1887 novel by the Italian writer Emilio De Marchi.
Background
Emilio De Marchi wrote The Priest's Hat in an attempt to create a popular serial novel that was of high literary level. It was deliberately written to avoid features that De Marchi associated with French literature and considered obscene. It was inspired by a real murder case.Plot
The Priest's Hat is about Carlo Coriolano, a baron and impoverished former playboy in Naples who plots to murder a greedy priest to be able to repay a loan.Publication
The story was serialised in June 1887 and published as a book in 1888. It stood out with its ambitious marketing campaign, which included large posters depicting a mysterious hat that were placed all over Milan. It became a major bestseller in Italy.In 2003, the scholar Nicolas J. Perella called the novel "a nicely wrought 'mystery' structured in the fashion of the appendix novel but written without the crudeness of style and language that too often characterized that genre". He wrote that it is "written in a readily accessible, yet dignified manner, and with just enough psychological probing to add some depth to the story".