The Betrothed: I Promessi Sposi by Alessandro Manzoni and translated by The Count O'Mahony. The reception given to Manzoni's masterpiece, "I Promessi Sposi" (1825-26) was very different. In form a historical novel, written at a time when the vogue of the Waverley Novels had stimulated the production of this form of fiction throughout Europe, the interest of "The Betrothed," as it is usually called in England, is rather psychological and sentimental than external. The scene is laid in Lombardy between 1628 and 1631, and the plot deals with the thwarting of the love of two peasants by a local tyrant. The manners of the time are presented with great vividness and picturesqueness; one of the most notable elements being the elaborate description of the plague which devastated Milan in 1630. The novel has taken a place as the most distinguished novel of modern Italy, and has been translated into nearly all the literary languages.