John Clay macKowen's classic text, with comprehensive new material based on current findings and research. John Clay MacKowen’s classic work Capri was published in 1884, but its spirited and informative writing remains as attractive for the modern reader as it did when it first appeared. This present edition starts with a newly typeset version of the original book, and then takes it further with new chapters by modern specialists, each one bringing MacKowen’s material up to date in the light of modern scholarship and findings. The choice of topics is wide, covering the island’s geology and palaeontology and archaeology, its prehistory and the many different outside influences that have left their mark on the economy and social life of its people from the years under the Roman Emperors, through the middle ages and on to the modern era. This extended version also contains much new information on the author himself. He was in turn a decorated officer in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, a medical doctor, a passionate and knowledgeable collector and bibliophile, and a twenty-year resident in Capri before finally sailing home to his native Louisiana. The story of his murder on the day of his arrival off the boat in New Orleans, and the disappearance of two trunks of rare antique books and bindings that he had taken with him from Capri in the evening of the day that his boat landed, has been enshrined in all previous accounts of his life – and is now shown to be completely false. The truth of his last years, and the fate of the collection of priceless books he brought back with him, has proved to be very much more interesting. The work has been prepared under the editorial direction of Anna Maria Palombi Cataldi, Professor of English in the University of Naples and Director of the Library of the Centro Caprense Ignazio Cerio in Capri. There are numerous illustrations, full supporting references, a bibliography and a comprehensive index.