Her mother took on the task of supporting the family by giving English and French language lessons in the Serao home.
Due to Francesco's indolent ways, the young girl grew up in an atmosphere marked by poverty. They were joined only later by Serao's father. Mother and daughter returned to Italy in 1860 and settled in Naples. Following the failed Italian revolutions of 1848, Francesco had gone into exile due to his opposition to the ruling Bourbon dynasty in Naples, and he was unable to return during the politically repressive years before the creation of a united Italy. Serao was born in Patras, Greece, on February 26, 1856, the daughter of Pauline Bonelly Serao and Francesco Serao, a Neapolitan journalist and Italian patriot. Nancy Harrowitz, on the other hand, has defended the continuing subtlety that Serao brought to her later writings. Anthony Gisolfi has vehemently maintained that Serao's style declined as she came to focus her literary energies on the topic of women in love. Having hitherto written penetrating novels about Italian society in a mainly realistic style, she now shifted to what some consider Gothic, melodramatic potboilers such as Il delitto di via Chiatamone ( The Crime of Via Chiatamone, 1908) and La mano tagliatta ( The Severed Hand, 1912). Students of her work agree that the fundamental stylistic development in her fiction took place around the turn of the century. Serao's fiction is notable for the variety of styles she employed, ranging from realism to romance to Gothic melodrama. Notes Laura Salsini, "Serao uncovers a subterranean, woman-centered world seldom examined by earlier or even contemporary authors." She crusaded against the poverty in which they found themselves, especially those in the South. Her work also displayed a deep, complex interest in the role of Italian women. Serao's work, both fiction and nonfiction, features vivid portrayals of Italian society at all levels, but her writing was particularly impassioned when it focused on urban problems, such as those demonstrated in her home city of Naples. She was, writes Alba Amoia, "Italy's first woman journalist and the prototype of the versatile contemporary woman journalist."
She achieved sufficient eminence to become, as Lucienne Kroha notes, one of Italy's "best-known public figures," despite the limits placed on women in southern Italy. With the exception of a stay in Rome in the 1880s, Serao spent most of her life in the southern Italian metropolis of Naples.
She also published almost 40 volumes of fiction, including 30 novels and 100 short stories. Prolific both as a journalist and a fiction writer, she spent almost 50 years in newspaper work, founding four newspapers. Matilde Serao, a journalist, novelist, and short-story writer, began her career in the newly founded Italian state of the late 19th century and continued her work into the mid-1920s. (fiction) Cuore infermo (The Sick Heart, 1881), Fantasia (Fantasy, 1882), La conquista di Roma (The Conquest of Rome, 1885), Vita e avventure di Riccardo Joanna (The Life and Adventures of Riccardo Joanna, 1887), Il paese di Cuccagna (The Land of Cockaigne, 1891), Suor Giovanna della Croce (Sister Joan of the Holy Cross, 1901), Il delitto di via Chiatamone (The Crime of Via Chiatamone, 1908), La mano tagliata (The Severed Hand, 1912), Ella non rispose (Souls Divided, 1914), Mors tua (The Harvest, 1926) (nonfiction) Il ventre di Napoli (The Belly of Naples, 1884). Returned to Italy from Greece with her mother (1860) worked at state telegraph agency (1874–77) began work as journalist (1876) published first short stories (1878) began friendship with Eleonora Duse (1879) published first novel and moved to Rome to work as a journalist (1881) became editor of Roman newspaper (1882) founded Corriere di Roma with Scarfoglio (1885) returned to Naples (1887) founded literary weekly review, La Settimana (1902) founded her own newspaper, Il Giorno (1904) protested granting of women's suffrage in local Italian elections (1925) lost Nobel Prize in literature to Grazia Deledda (1926) visited by Benito Mussolini (1927). Born on February 26, 1856, in Patras, Greece died of a heart attack on July 25, 1927, in Naples, Italy daughter of Francesco Saverio Serao (an exiled Neapolitan journalist) and Paolina Bonelly Serao (a Greek noblewoman) attended Scuola normale (Normal School) in Naples, 1870–73 married Edoardo Scarfoglio, in February 1885 (separated 1902) children: (first marriage) four sons (with Giuseppe Natale, a Neapolitan lawyer) daughter Eleonora (b. Name variations: (pseudonyms) Chiquita, Paolo Spada, and Gibus. Italian journalist and fiction writer who commented extensively on the role of women in the newly unified Italian state.
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