The more than 100 women whose life stories make up this volume range from the exemplary to the notorious, from historical and mythological figures to Renaissance contemporaries of its author, the master storyteller Giovanni Boccaccio. The first collection of biographies in Western literature devoted[...]

This title contains four hilarious and provocative stories from Boccaccio's Decameron, featuring cuckolded husbands, cross-dressing wives and very bad priests. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Pen[...]

Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron" was 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 [...]

Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, Giovanni Boccaccio's undisputed masterpiece recaptures both the tragedies and comedies of medieval life and is surely one of the greatest achievements in the history of literature.
[...]

After the composition of the Decameron, and under the influence of Petrarch's humanism, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) devoted the last decades of his life to compiling encyclopedic works in Latin. Among them is "Famous Women", the first collection of biographies in Western literature devoted exclus[...]

1348. The Black Death is sweeping through Europe. In Florence, plague has carried off one hundred thousand people. In their Tuscan villas, seven young women and three young men tell tales to recreate the world they have lost, weaving a rich tapestry of comedy, tragedy, ribaldry and farce. Boccaccio'[...]

In the summer of 1348, the Black Death ravages Florence and ten young Florentines flee to take refuge in the countryside where they entertain themselves with disparate tales of love, eros, death and corruption featuring a host of colourful characters from corrupt clergymen and mad kings to devious l[...]

In the summer of 1348, the plague ravages Florence, and ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside, where they entertain themselves with tales of love, death and corruption, featuring a host of colourful characters, from lascivious clergymen and mad kings to devious lovers and false miracl[...]