Is there an Italian theory of short narrative forms? How does the publication of short fiction in newspapers and magazines shape its formal development? And how can we trace the historical evolution from the novella verista to the modernist one, and from there to the expansive prose model that emerged in 1930s Italy? This book seeks to address these questions from both a diachronic and a typological perspective. It explores several key issues: the formal configuration of the modern Italian novella and the aesthetic discourse surrounding it; the interplay between literary creativity and publishing venues; and the shift in narrative balance from the objective omniscience of the nineteenth century to the limited, subjective viewpoints that define early twentieth-century storytelling.