Christopher Stace

A New Translation of the Novellino of Masuccio Salernitano Christopher Stace

This book provides a much-needed new version of an unjustly neglected 15th century Italian collection of prose tales hugely important to the history and development of short story writing. It is the first complete translation into English of Masuccio's Novellino since that of W. G. Waters in 1895. The Novellino (50 tales over five decades) is fiercely anti-clerical, and its bitter satire and political prejudices ensured that it was put on the Index of Prohibited Books. The original manuscript was, in fact, burnt and the first edition was published posthumously. The tales can be grim and gothic, tragic or comic, erotic, or simply hilarious. The author is always at pains to present an agreeable mixture: he knows exactly how to cheer the reader with a morally uplifting tale to offset stories of murder, incest and skulduggery, and an endless series of ingeniously contrived adulteries. This new translation makes use of the editions, scholarship and dictionaries unavailable to the first translator, and it has had the advice and assistance of leading scholars of the genre today.