Pinocchio is weirder than you remember (opens in new tab)

The original 1881 serial ended in chapter fifteen with the puppet hanging dead from an oak tree. Italian children wrote in begging the author to continue. He resumed reluctantly. What followed — donkey-skin drums, dead-girl fairies, a satire of every other moralising children's book in Italy — became one of the most translated books in human history, and quietly helped teach Italians their own language. [Storica]