Decameron [Paperback]

Giovanni Boccaccio’sDecameronwas the first great masterpiece of European storytelling; this brilliant new translation by J. G. Nichols faithfully captures its timeless vitality in readable and natural English.

In the summer of 1348, with the plague ravaging Florence, ten young men and women take refuge in the countryside. There they entertain one another for ten days with tales of love, death, and deception, featuring a host of characters from lascivious clergymen and mad kings to devious lovers and false miracle-makers. Named from the Greek for ten days, theDecamerondraws on ancient mythology, historical events, and everyday life, blending them into a treasury of tragic, comic, and outrageously bawdy stories that have influenced writers and entertained readers for more than six centuries.Giovanni Boccaccio(1313–75) was an Italian author and poet who has long been honored—along with Petrarch and Dante—as one of the three fathers of Italian literature.
 
J. G. Nicholsis a British poet, literary critic, and translator.  He was awarded the John Florio prize for his translation of the poems of Guido Gozzano, and his translation of Petrarch'sCanzonierewon the Monselice Prize.Decameron

Just as Hamlet has been described as full of quotations, so the Decameron may at times seem to be full of stories we have heard before. That so many later writers have drawn on this work is of course a testimony to Boccaccio's skill as a storyteller: few if any of these tales were of his own invention, but – as is often said about jokes – it is the way they are told that counts. To imply a comparison with telling jokes is not inapposite and is not to depreciate these stories: true words can be spoken in jest. The complexities of this work are such that not only the book as a whole, but each of the hundred tales has acquired its own extensive critical bibliography. Nevertheless, the essentilc7