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 meddling and squeamish censors. The editors of the Modern Library are pleased to present here for the first time in an unlimited edition a new and distinguished translation by Frances Winwar.