Giovanni Boccaccio

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Tales from the Decameron

Mrs Rosie and the Priest

Unlikely Tales of Love

The Eaten Heart

The Decameron

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Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim, The Horse's Mouth

Resurrection

Collected Non Fiction

I Write to Find Out What I am Thinking

Selected Stories and Essays

In a Yellow Wood

A Room of One’s Own

The Patrick Melrose Novels

The Fire Next Time; Nobody Knows My Name ; No Name  In The  Street; The Devil Finds Work

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Hope Against Hope

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The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Decameron

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The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Some believe many parts of the tales are indebted to the influence of The Book of Good Love. Many notable writers such as Chaucer are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron

The Decameron is structured in a frame narrative, or frame tale. Boccaccio begins with a description of the Black Death and a group of seven women and three men who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a villa in the (then) countryside of Fiesole for two weeks. To pass the time, each member of the party tells one story for each one of the nights spent at the villa. Although fourteen days pass, two days each week are set aside; one day for chores and one holy day during which no work is done. In this manner, 100 stories are told by the end of the two weeks

Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 - 21 December 1375) was an Italian author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular. Boccaccio is particularly notable for his dialogue, of which it has been said that it surpasses in verisimilitude that of just about all of his contemporaries, since they were medieval writers and often followed formulaic models for character and plot.

Decameron

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Giovanni Boccaccio

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