For more than five centuries Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron has stood virtually unchallenged in its supremacy as the world's greatest collection of tales. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Keats and many other literary immortals found in these Florentine stories a never-failing inspiration and a veritable source book for plot material. To the modern reader, The Decameron affords undiminished stimulation and pleasure, despite the strictures and the vain attempts at suppression by hysterical censors. Boccaccio's lusty book is one of the best-selling titles on the Modern Library list.