"The Land of Cockayne" was written in 1901 by Matilde Serao (1856–1927) as a powerful study in fiction of the passion for gambling and the evil effect of the national lottery in Naples on all classes of society.
Matilde Serao (7 March 1856 – 25 July 1927) was a Greek-born Italian journalist and novelist. She was the first woman called to edit an Italian newspaper, Il Corriere di Roma and later Il Giorno. Serao was also the co-founder and editor of the newspaper Il Mattino, and the author of several novels. She never won the Nobel Prize in Literature despite being nominated on six occasions.