Elisabetta Dami

Elisabetta Dami (born 1 January 1958 in Milan) is an Italian children's author, the creator of Geronimo Stilton, the mouse journalist whose name appears as the author on the books.

The daughter of publisher Piero Dami, who founded Dami Editore in 1972, she started in the family business as a proofreader at 13. After volunteering at a children's hospital in the 1990s, she began writing adventure stories about Geronimo Stilton for the sick children there. The first Italian Geronimo Stilton books are dated to 1997 in some sources, while Edizioni Piemme was publishing the series by 2000. For many years Piemme let readers believe Geronimo was real, and the identity of the author stayed a mystery. The series has since grown to over 300 titles, including spin-offs such as the Thea Stilton books, with sales of more than 180 million copies worldwide and translations into 49 languages. She was made a Commendatore of the Italian Republic in 2022.

In English, the books are published by Scholastic in the United States, beginning with Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye in February 2004, and by Sweet Cherry Publishing in the UK.

For collectors

Collectors of the series separate the original Italian editions from the English translations. The first English title was Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye, issued by Scholastic in February 2004, and British editions now come from Sweet Cherry Publishing.