Anthony Valerio

The life of one of the Great Lovers of all time, John Dante lived the life of a bachelor's fantasy, going from his humble beginnings in a small Italian village to the Playboy Mansion, where he lived for 26 years with Hugh Hefner and 40 of the most beautiful women in the world. John Dante was a key figure in the first years of the Playboy empire, hiring Bunnies, training Bunny Mothers, and managing the Playboy jet. He befriended some of the most popular and important figures of our time, including Hugh Hefner, of whom John paints as a "fascinating, complex man," as well as Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, James Caan and myriad other personalities and stars. A first hand, inside look. An important book from the life of the second-in-command. Critics are saying: "Anthony Valerio's biography of John Dante, Hugh Hefner's second-in-command at *Playboy* and the Great Libertine's best friend for over 40 years, is like no other book I have read. Deft and clever, literate and highly readable. Parading through these pages are some of the best-known names in show business and, its darker side--especially for a magazine self-identified as "men's entertainment"-- pornography: Beatty, Bogdanovich, Caan, Cosby, Curtis, Jagger, Lovelace, Nicholson, Reems, Steinem, and, especially, Silverstein. Readers will be riveted by the portrait of the beloved children's author that emerges in these pages. Not exactly what they may have expected. Silverstein urged John Dante to contact Valerio, whom Silverstein knew and whose work he respected, so that John Dante could write a book--the insider's view of *Playboy* --that would earn him enough money to get him to Florence, the town that exiled his namesake, the poet Dante Alighieri close to 700 years earlier. The 20th-century (John) Dante gets to Florence all right, but the price is steep, indeed. It's not exactly *Se7en, * but it has its dark, seamy, *nasty* side. Think *Star 80*.""Valerio writes surely and gives us gripping and very, very literate prose. It seems completely appropriate that the readers of *John Dante's Inferno* be brought into the presence of the Great Libertines of western culture, which include, surely, Casanova and Hugh Hefner. Read it. And enjoy."

This book is the first complete and accurate biography of the remarkable life and revolutionary career of Anita Garibaldi. Illiterate and poor, the daughter of a herdsman in 19th century Brazil, Anita lifted herself from a life of obscurity to one that is the stuff of romance and adventure. When she and a young Italian exile by the name of Captain Giuseppe Garibaldi met in 1839, they ran off (she was married), joined the cause of founding a Brazilian republic and went on to lead the defense of Montevideo from an Argentine siege-just one episode among many in their crusade for democratic ideas: representative governmemnt, fair taxation. political and personal freedom--at a time of immense revolutionary upheaval. She fought side-by-side with Captain then General Garibaldi while giving birth to four of their children and organizing and recruiting men and women to the republic's cause, both insouth America and Europe. And it was Anita who taught Garibaldi the all-important guerrilla ways of the gauchos, which served him first in defending the Roman Republic of 1849 and then in ousting the peninsula of Austria in 1860. Returning to Italy in 1848 to fight for a united republican Italy, as revolution swept throughout Europe, Anita and Garibaldi were tragically separated by her untimely death the following year. Garibaldi went on to ultimate fame as the father of modern Italy-while Anita's story drifted into the mists of legend. This work brings life to an amazing, important, revolutionary woman..

The Life and Work of pioneering physician Ignaz P. Semmelweis, who discovered the causes and means of prevention of the pandemic of his day, childbed fever. Called the "Father of Antisepsis," he was largely ignored, placed in an asylum and murdered. He was a man who did good for women." His life was a beneficial example for all mankind." Kurt Vonnegut"To be sure, Semmelweis was a pioneering physician and scientist whose accomplishments should be studied for their contributions to science. But he was also a feminist, and his work should be understood in that vein, also."--Ellen Nerenberg, Hollis Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures, Wesleyan UniversityLooking at and understanding someone like Semmelweis on a deep level and how he combated prejudices and prevailing thoughts and changed the way medicine is practiced is as relevant today as it was in the 1840s.-Prakash Sampath, M. D. President, Rhode Island Neurological Institute. Readers feel like they are with Semmelweis in the hospital wards where women are dying mysteriously of puerperal fever. We feel with him as he hunts down the cause of the disease with observation and deductive reasoning. We share the exhilarating joy of discovering the cause and then, once the establishment resists the findings, and rejects the easy prevention of the disease, Semmelweis's initial outrage and anger-- ---Eric Goldman, professor, University of ConnecticutOur history, so full of tragedies like his, unrealized potential: failed reformers and inventors, scientists and artists embittered and ignored, driven to early death. -Ak s Őstor, professor, author, filmmakerRead this book, men and women alike. It is one of Valerio's best.-Rebecca West, emeritus, University of ChicagoFrom the author: I wrote the last draft of this book in the winter of 2019, more than a year before the current pestilence, which kills indiscriminately, and more than 170 years after the one witnessed and suffered by Dr. Semmelweis, namely childbed fever, killing hordes of new mothers and, often, their babies. Wash Your Hands He exclaimed, to little avail.-Anthony Valerio. 20/20 ... the hope is that today, around the world, at this moment, when one is passing and using surely one of millions of hand sanitizers, a thought can possibly go out to Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis and a fuller understanding, and appreciation, of his life and work. thank you, Anthony Valerio

ANITA GARIBALDI, a Biography is the first complete and accurate story of the remarkable life and revolutionary career of Anita Garibaldi. Illiterate and poor, the daughter of a herdsman in 19th century Brazil, Anita lifted herself from a life of obscurity to one that is the stuff of romance and adventure. When she and a young Italian exile by the name of Captain Giuseppe Garibaldi met in 1839, they ran off (she was married), joined the cause of founding a Brazilian republic and went on to lead the defense of Montevideo from an Argentine siege-just one episode among many in their idealistic, nationalistic crusade in a time of immense revolutionary upheaval. She fought side-by-side with Captain then General Garibaldi while giving birth to four of their children and organizing and recruiting men and women to the republic's cause. And it was Anita who taught Garibaldi the all-important guerrilla ways of the gauchos, which served him first in defending the Roman Republic of 1849 and then in ousting the peninsula of Italy of Austrian rule in 1860. Returning to Italy in 1848 to fight for a united republican Italy, as revolution swept throughout Europe, Anita and Garibaldi were tragically separated by her untimely death the following year. Garibaldi went on to ultimate fame as the father of modern Italy-while Anita's story drifted into the mists of legend. This work brings life to an amazing, important woman." Anthony Valerio's biography of Anita Garibaldi is exactly what she would have wanted--a story told with sensitivity and eloquence and one that positions her as the active agent of her own destiny."--Professor Philip V. Cannistraro"In Valerio's hand, Anita Garibaldi emerges as the courageous but vulnerable woman from Brazil, whose singular and precious spirit was caught in the times. Anita Garibaldi is a romance discovered in history's embrace. Valerio creates the Brazilian ethos in its emerald presence as the brilliant nerve in Garibaldi's brave but short time. This biography has a texture like a Renoir film, broad and expansive, swimming along in voluble seas."--Afaa M. Weaver, poet, professor"Valerio's biography salutes the legend that Anita Garibaldi has elsewhere and may be too someday become."--South Eastern Latin Americanist"Anthony Valerio's genre-crossing biography provides unique insight into Anita Garibaldi's 'short, glorious life.' Valerio writes with a novelist's dedication to character and an historian's dedication to the past. An unusaul book for a revolutionary woman."-Janet R. Jacobson, Director Center for Research on Women. Barnard College" merito di Anthony Valerio aver restituito ad Anita la sua personalit e la sua vita, unita ma non confusa con la biografia e il mito di Garibaldi" --EMILIO GENTILE

The Screenplay of the celebrated JOHN Dante's Inferno, about an immigrant's rise to second-in-command int he Playboy Empire. he life of one of the Great Lovers of all time, John Dante lived the life of a bachelor's fantasy, going from his humble beginnings in a small Italian village to the Playboy Mansion, where he lived for 26 years with Hugh Hefner and 40 of the most beautiful women in the world. John Dante was a key figure in the first years of the Playboy empire, hiring Bunnies, training Bunny Mothers, and managing the Playboy jet. He befriended some of the most popular and important figures of our time, including Hugh Hefner, of whom John paints as a "fascinating, complex man," as well as Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, James Caan and myriad other personalities and stars. A first hand, inside look. An important book from the life of the second-in-command.

"Like most of Valerio's narrative fiction, 'The Little Sailor' alchemically combines personal and popular cultural histories; but unlike the earlier work, this opus resolves the logic and emotion of its protagonist's episodic memory in a linear plot, transmuting the Little Sailor's childhood experience of his community (particularly its women) in the first section, 'Brooklyn, Rome, ' into the action of second section, 'The Bensonhurst Pigeon, ' a whimsical adaptation of Hammett's and Huston's The Maltese Falcon."--(Professor G. Guida, CUN

The incomparable Lefty--married, red-hair, very sexy--has two cornerstones of the Italian culture talking between themselves: the gangster & the poet. How it all is resolved is, at once, exciting & beautiful. Here Valerio, preceding the popular TV series "The Sopranos", uses the device of the therapist--but in this case the gangster hands out advice as well as bullets.