Tales from the Decameron : Penguin Classics

Tales from the Decameron : Penguin Classics
ISBN: 9780141191331
Publication Date: 18 November 2015

'That night the abbess was enjoying the company of a priest, whom she often arranged to be transported to her room in a chest'

Bawdy, hilarious, tragic and surprising, Boccaccio's fourteenth-century masterpiece The Decameron is a collection of stories told by a group of young people taking refuge from plague-ridden Florence. This selection brings together The Decameron's most celebrated tales of secret lovers, cuckolded husbands, lascivious priests, smart women, practical jokes, wise lessons and strange twists of fate, brought to life in an accessible new translation which preserves all the humour and verve of Boccaccio's storytelling.

Translated with an introduction by Peter Hainsworth

About the Author

Boccaccio was born in Florence in 1313. He later moved to Naples, where he became part of the circle at court and started writing books. In 1348, he witnessed the plague in Florence, which killed half the city's population and would become the backdrop to his masterpiece, The Decameron. In later life he befriended the poet Petrarch, who left to him in his will an ermine robe to keep him warm when studying on winter nights. Boccaccio died in 1375. Peter Hainsworth is Professor of Italian at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature.