Disclosure : This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.

The Decameron

A seminal work of European literature that has inspired writers from Chaucer to Shakespeare, the “Penguin Classics” edition of Giovanni Boccaccio`s “The Decameron” is translated with an introduction by G.H. McWilliam. In the summer of 1348, as the “Black Death” ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside. Taken from the Greek, meaning `ten-day event`, Boccaccio`s Decameron sees his characters amuse themselves by each telling a story a day, for the ten days of their confinement – a hundred stories of love and adventure, life and death, and surprising twists of fate. Less preoccupied with abstract concepts of morality or religion than earthly values, the tales range from the bawdy Peronella, hiding her lover in a tub, to Ser Cepperallo, who, despite his unholy effrontery, becomes a Saint. The result is a towering monument of European literature and a masterpiece of imaginative narrative. This is the second edition of G.H. McWilliam`s acclaimed translation of the “Decameron”. In his introduction McWilliam illuminates the worlds of Boccaccio and of his storytellers, showing Boccaccio as a master of vivid and exciting prose fiction.Boccaccio (1313-75) was an Italian writer of both verse and prose. He wrote “The Decameron” over a period of ten years, and is also the author of “Teseide and Filostrato”. If you enjoyed “The Decameron”, you might like Dante`s “Inferno”, also available in “Penguin Classics”. “McWilliam`s finest work, his translation of Boccaccio`s “Decameron” remains one of the most successful and lauded books in the series”. (“The Times”).

Related Products:

The Iliad Tales fron 1,001 Nights The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Petersburg Narrow Road to the Interior: And Other Writings Emma The Tibetan Book of the Dead.: First Complete Translation The Penguin Classics Book The Red and the Black Nausea The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry The Queen of Spades and Other Stories Effi Briest Bel-ami One Hundred Writers In One Box – Postcards from Penguin Modern Classics Default ThumbnailDeath and the Penguin Tortilla Flat No Way Back The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns Jason and the Argonauts Les Miserables The Beautiful and Damned Little Black Classics Box Set History of the Peloponnesian War The Well of Loneliness The Myth Of Sisyphus, Short Stories in French: New Penguin Parallel Texts Translation: A Very Short Introduction Short Stories in Spanish: New Penguin Parallel Texts The Penguin History of Europe 100 Artists` Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists Short Stories in Italian and English: New Penguin Parallel Text Les Liaisons Dangereuses Default ThumbnailPenguin Classics Essays Time Lived, Without Its Flow Design as Art Adventures of Huckleberry Finn His Dark Materials: Amber Spyglass Dead Souls