Renowned today for his contribution to the rise of the modern
European fairy tale, Giovan Francesco Straparola (c. 1480-c. 1557)
is particularly known for his dazzling anthology The Pleasant
Nights. Originally published in Venice in 1550 and 1553, this
collection features seventy-three folk stories, fables, jests, and
pseudo-histories, including nine tales we might now designate for
'mature readers' and seventeen proto-fairy tales. Nearly all of
these stories, including classics such as 'Puss in Boots,' made
their first ever appearance in this collection; together, the tales
comprise one of the most varied and engaging Renaissance
miscellanies ever produced. Its appeal sustained it through
twenty-six editions in the first sixty years. This full critical
edition of The Pleasant Nights presents these stories in English
for the first time in over a century. The text takes its
inspiration from the celebrated Waters translation, which is
entirely revised here to render it both more faithful to the
original and more sparkishly idiomatic than ever before. The
stories are accompanied by a rich sampling of illustrations,
including originals from nineteenth-century English and French
versions of the text. As a comprehensive critical and historical
edition, these volumes contain far more information on the stories
than can be found in any existing studies, literary histories, or
Italian editions of the work. Donald Beecher provides a lengthy
introduction discussing Straparola as an author, the nature of
fairy tales and their passage through oral culture, and how this
phenomenon provides a new reservoir of stories for literary
adaptation. Moreover, the stories all feature extensive
commentaries analysing not only their themes but also their
fascinating provenances, drawing on thousands of analogue tales
going back to ancient Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic stories.
Immensely entertaining and readable, The Pleasant Nights will
appeal to anyone interested in fairy tales, ancient stories, and
folk creations. Such readers will also enjoy Beecher's academically
solid and erudite commentaries, which unfold in a manner as light
and amusing as the stories themselves.
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