This article investigates the circulation of translated narrative works in Italian available in Trieste between 1830 and 1930. While translation studies have developed extensively internationally, Italy lacks comprehensive long-term surveys, with existing research often limited to individual authors or specific texts. Trieste offers a particularly compelling case study due to its multilingual and multicultural context within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its role as a major commercial and publishing hub, and its dynamic literary environment. The study draws on two main sources: the holdings of the “Attilio Hortis” city library and the catalog of publications printed in Trieste, accessed through the OPAC of the Italian National Library System. Excluding classical works, freely adapted texts, and unattributed collections, the research focuses on modern narrative works. A combination of automated keyword searches and manual filtering allowed the identification of translated works, revealing patterns in source languages, genres, and publication trends. By analyzing the data, this study reconstructs the circulation of foreign literature in a key Italian city and highlights the role of translations in shaping the literary and cultural landscape of post-unification Italy. The findings contribute to building a historical profile of Italian narrative, mapping cultural flows, and providing a foundation for future large-scale digital analyses of translated and native literature through distant reading approaches.
