Collodi's tale of Pinocchio may have fairy tale-like qualities that tie it to the genre of children's literature, but many of its elements are more allied to the tradition of adult, "serious" prose fiction. Its main personages, for example, have rather bad characters, unlike the unerringly good heroes and heroines of fairy tales. Pinocchio is transgressive and selfish for most of the tale; Geppetto is very hot-tempered; Ciliega (Mr. Cherry) drinks much too much; and the Blue Fairy is quite hard-hearted and often does not display much affection for the puppet. Moreover, the tale is set in a provincial Tuscany that was quite recognizable to readers when it first appeared, a world made up of everyday problems, among which was getting enough to eat. This is not at all the utopian world of typical fairy tales, in which material problems can be overcome by magic and everyone lives happily ever after.

Illustrations by Ugo Fleres for the serial publication of Pinocchio in the Giornale per i bambini, from the appendix to Perella's translated and annotated edition of the tale.

In Ugo Fleres's first illustrations of the tale, which were published along with it in the Giornale per i bambini, we see how puppet-like Pinocchio is, in contrast to Disney's and other later conceptions, in which he is much more like a boy even before his transformation into a fully human being.

Yet, as Italo Calvino noted, Pinocchio is "a model of narration, wherein each theme is presented and returns with exemplary rhythm and precision, every episode has a function and a necessity in the general design of the action, each character has a visible clarity and a linguistic specificity" (interview conducted by Maria Corti, in Autografo 2:6 [October 1985]); in this sense the tale follows, like the fairy tale or folk tale, a fundamental narrative prototype, as defined by Vladimir Propp. The dynamism of the action as it unfolds horizontally is much more important than deep psychological or extensive descriptive elements; the story itself is the thing, in short. As in many fairy tales, in Pinocchio too it is the overcoming of obstacles that pushes the tale forward, so that the hero or heroine may be rewarded with the happy ending.

In order to understand better the qualities that make of the puppet's tale something much more complex than a simple fairy tale-like story of goodness and obedience rewarded, however, it is first important to keep in mind that the book we now think of as a unified tale was in fact published serially under two titles over a three-year period. "La storia di un burattino" (The story of a puppet) was published over several months of 1881 in the Giornale per i bambini, a very popular children's magazine.

The first 15 chapters of the unified book are made up of these pieces, and in the last of them Pinocchio is hanged and dies. Collodi killed off his character evidently with no intent of resurrecting him, but the editor of the Giornale per i bambini pleaded with him to continue the very popular story, so in 1882 and into 1883 Collodi published piecemeal "Le avventure di Pinocchio," which became chapters 16 to 36 of the book.

from Pinocchio, 1883 Enrico Mazzanti, the illustrator of the first book edition of the entire tale, gives Pinocchio a slightly more human look, although he is still quite clearly a puppet and not a boy.

from Pinocchio, 1901 Illustration by Carlo Chiossi for the 1901 edition.