Anna Radius Zuccari

Anna Radius Zuccari (May 7, 1846 – July 13, 1918) was an Italian writer who used the pen name Neera. She published her first short story in 1875 in the publication Il Pungolo. Zuccari contributed to various magazines and journals, such as Rivista d'Italia, , L'Illustrazione Italiana, and L'Idea Liberale. In 1890, she founded the journal Vita Intima. Her fiction, beginning with Un romanzo, extols maternity as the only proper vocation for women as well as a source of surprising passion. She summarized her conservative views in Idee di una donna (1903 ), having given them more practical form in the Dizionario d'igiene per le famiglie (1881), written jointly with Paolo Mantegazza.

She died in Milan of cancer at the age of 72, being confined to bed by her illness. During the period before her death, she dictated her memoirs which were published after her death as Una giovinezza del secolo XIX (Portrait of a 19th-century youth). Widely popular in her own lifetime, Zuccari was a friend of Capuana and her work was admired by Croce. Recent criticism focuses on the ambivalence of her anti-feminist defence of women.

Selected works

Un romanzo (A novel) (1876) Addio! (Farewell), novel (1877) Il castigo (The punishment) (1881) Dizionario d'igiene per le famiglie (Dictionary of hygiene for families), instructional (1881), with Paolo Mantegazza Teresa, novel (1886) Lydia, novel (1887) L'indomani (The day after), novel (1890) Il libro di mio figlio, essays (1891) Battaglie per un'idea, essays (1897) Battaglie per un'idea, essays (1898) Le idee di una donna (The idea of a woman) (1903)