ISBN Exemplary Stories book 368 pages

Even more popular in their day than Don Quixote Cervantes's Exemplary Stories (1613) surprise challenge and delight. Ranging from the picaresque to the satirical Cervantes's Exemplary Stories defy the conventions of heroic chivalric literature through a combination of comic irony moral ambiguity realism and sheer mirth. With acute narrative skill and deft characterisation drawing on colloquial language and farce Cervantes creates a tension between the everyday and the literary the plausible and the improbable. While encouraging us to reach our own moral conclusions he also persuades us to accept the coincidental and the incredible: two boys indulge their life of crime at a time of public prayer; a young nobleman undergoes a change of identity at the behest of not a princess but a mere gipsy girl and most fantastically talking dogs philosophize in a ward full of syphilitics. By placing the extraordinary within the contexts of the ordinary the Exemplary Stories chart new novelistic territory and demonstrate Cervantes at his most imaginative and innovative. This new translation captures the full vigour of Cervantes's wit and makes available two rarely printed tales `The Illustrious Kitchen Maid' and `The Power of Blood'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features including expert introductions by leading authorities helpful notes to clarify the text up-to-date bibliographies for further study and much more.