Pinocchio is, rightly, one of the most well-known characters in the history of literature, a true universal icon. "The Adventures of Pinocchio: Stories of a Puppet" was written in the 1880s by Carlo Lorenzini, known as Collodi, and there is very little to add about the original book.
Not everyone knows that in 1917, at the height of the Great War, Carlo Lorenzini's nephew Paolo (who used the pseudonym Collodi Nipote) wrote a novel of over two hundred pages entitled "The Heart of Pinocchio."
This book is markedly different from the original Pinocchio; the fairy-tale content is gone, replaced by the theme of mutilation and physical impairments of soldiers, which was very much a reality at the time.
In summary, the book picks up where Carlo Collodi's book ended, with a real boy Pinocchio heading off to war, driven by a spirit of adventure as described in the first pages:
"The war, the shots, racing on one side, beatings on the other, horses racing wildly, flags fluttering in the wind, victory hymns, medals on the chest, enemies tied up like salami, a plunder of riches, war trophies—all danced a fantastic riot before his eyes. War had to be... a job made especially for him."
However, the war devastates poor Pinocchio, who then returns to being a sort of puppet, precisely because of the prosthetics.
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