Complete and unabridged, with 8 full-page plates by Telemaco Signorini, Giovanni Segantini and Silvestro Lega. A carpenter's log turns into a boy who lies, runs away, is hanged from an oak, swallowed by a shark and turned into a donkey — and wants only to be told he is good. Collodi wrote it as a serial for a children's paper in 1881 and killed his hero off, then brought him back because the readers demanded it. The Italian is much harsher than any English version, and the cricket is killed in the fourth chapter. Eight plates of Italian light and labour, from Segantini's ploughing to Signorini's Florence street, place Collodi's harsh tale in the world it came from.