Composed in the mid-fourteenth century, this prose work frames a hundred tales told over ten days by seven young women and three young men who have left plague-stricken Florence for a country house. Each day a different member of the company rules and often sets a theme: fortune's reversals, love that ends in disaster or in wit, the tricks of wives, monks, and merchants. The novelle range across Italy and the Mediterranean, from bawdy fabliaux to stories of generosity and cruel tests. The book is a framed story-cycle about appetite and ingenuity under the Black Death, not a chronicle of the plague and not a single romance.
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Subject/Genre
8 Subjects| No. | Volume Title | Page Count |
|---|---|---|
| Vol. 1 | 3RD Printing | 394 pp |
| Vol. 2 | Translation | 324 pp |
10 aquatints by Buckland-Wright in each volume. Green two-volume slipcase, repeating the binding design in gold in outline.
| Printing | Print Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Printing | 1998 | — |