A wide range of novels and theatrical plays highlight the lively cultural environment of Smyrna, especially on the theater stage. Among the original Greek editions, we should single out the Neos Erotokritos, a verse adaptation of the work of Vincenzo Cornaro in a katharevousa Phanariot language by Dionysios Fotinos, as well as the works of the Phanariot author Panagiotis Soutsos. The anthologies of poems include a very rare 1838 edition of poems with elements of Phanariot origin, as well as popular songs. The poem Myrtia (Myrtle), set in the music of Giuseppe Verdi, is the work of Ioannis Isidoridis Skylissis, founder of the «Printing House of the Parisian Apocrypha,» which published a series of his translations of French novels.
There are many more translations, primarily of French, but also of Italian or Russian novels and plays into Greek. Leading printing houses specializing in literature among other genres were the «Amaltheia», the printing house «A. Damianou», the «Ionian Typography» of Petros Klados, the printing house «Nikolaos Helmis» and the «Printing House of Joseph Magnes.»
