Boccaccio (1313-1375) was an Italian writer of both verse and prose. He wrote The Decameron over a period of ten years, and is also the author of Teseide and Filostrato. G H McWilliam was the first Professor of Italian at Leicester University.He has also translated Verga's Cavalleria Rusticana for Penguin Classics
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