Decameron

In the summer of 1348, as the "Black Death" ravages their city, ten young Florentines take refuge in the countryside. In this title, the characters amuse themselves by each telling a story a day, for the ten days of their confinement - a hundred stories of love and adventure.

Reviews

“McWilliam’s finest work, [his] translation of Boccaccio’s Decameron remains one of the most successful and lauded books in the series.” —The Times (London)

“The Decameron, by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375), made a great impression on me. . . . Ten youths—seven women and three men—take turns telling stories for 10 days. At around the age of 16, I found it reassuring that Boccaccio, in conceiving his narrators, had made most of them women. Here was a great writer, the father of the modern story, presenting seven great female narrators. There was something to hope for. . . . The seven female narrators of the Decameron should never again need to rely on the great Giovanni Boccaccio to express themselves. . . . The female story, told with increasing skill, increasingly widespread and unapologetic, is what must now assume power.” —Elena Ferrante, The New York Times