The Decameron (Penguin Classics)

A complete edition of the hilarious, bawdy, irreverent masterpiece of medieval Italy—and the inspiration for the film The Little Hours—in an acclaimed translation

In the summer of 1348, as the Black Death ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside. They amuse themselves by each telling a story a day for the ten days they are destined to remain there—a hundred stories of love, adventure and surprising twists of fate. Less preoccupied with abstract concepts of morality or religion than with earthly values, the tales range from the bawdy Peronella hiding her lover in a tub to Ser Cepperello, 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. His introduction illuminates the worlds of Boccaccio and of his storytellers, showing Boccaccio as a master of vivid and exciting prose fiction. 

• Inferno (Bantam Classics)
• The Canterbury Tales
• The Heptameron (Penguin Classics)
• Four Comedies: The Braggart Soldier; The Brothers Menaechmus; The Haunted House; The Pot of Gold (Oxford World's Classics)
• Montaigne: Essays
• The Romance of the Rose (Oxford World's Classics)
• Arthurian Romances (Penguin Classics)
• Fool: A Novel
• The Prince (Norton Critical Editions)
• Piers Plowman: A New Translation of the B-text (Oxford World's Classics)