Decameron
Subtitle: The John Payne Translation
Edition: Revised edition
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: November 17, 1986
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 444
ISBN-13: 9780520058729
Subjects: Novels, other prose & writers; Plague; Italian Prose; Literature - Classics / Criticism; Italian; Fiction; Classics; Storytelling; Literary Criticism & Collections / General; Europe; History
First sentence: Every time I stop to consider your natural inclination to pity, most gracious ladies, I recognize that you will find the opening of this present work abhorrent and distressing; for so is the painful recapitulation of the recent deadly plague, which occasioned hardship and grief to everyone who witnessed it or had some experience of it, and which marks the introduction of my work.