THE DECAMERON. Translated by Richard Aldington

Limited Edition of 1750 numbered copies on Abbey Wove paper. With the added pamphlet "The Happy Art of Narration. Readings of Boccaccio and the Decameron" by John Dryden, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Percy Byssche Shelley and James Leigh Hunt. Illustrated with 20 aquatints by Buckland-Wright. 4to, publisher’s original red Wassa Goatskin, lettered and blocked with a gilt geometric designs on the covers and spine by Jeff Clements, top edge gilt. Housed in the original folding case, lettered in silver on the spine panel. 709 pp. A pristine copy, as mint.

Edizione: impressive limited edition from the folio society with sensuous illustrations by buckland-wright.<br> boccaccio is considered along with dante and petrarch as part of the great triumvirate of italian writers. all contemporaries, they established perhaps the first true post classical literary style in italy, and thus in western civilization. the decameron is boccaccio’s most influential work and has inspired generations of writers all around the world. perhaps most importantly to english literature the decameron is believed to be the biggest influence on chaucer (though perhaps through an anonymous translation) for the structure of his canterbury tales.<br> the work is a gathering of tales from several sources created by boccaccio and written over several years, but finally collected under one title between 1349 and 1351. the story is of seven women and three men who have left florence for ten days in order to avoid the plague. they depart for neighboring villas and over the course of the next ten days each person tells a tale to entertain the others. the hundred tales are considered one of the greatest works in italian literature and have influenced successive generations of writers for centuries.