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Il Pentamerone: Or, the Tale of Tales
Paperback
Classic FictionGeneral Fiction
ISBN13: 9781025733142
Publisher: Tradd Street Press
Published: Feb 14 2026
Pages: 492
Weight: 1.50
Height: 0.99 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
Il Pentamerone, also known as The Tale of Tales, stands as a monumental collection of Neapolitan fairy tales written by Giambattista Basile. This influential work serves as the earliest recorded collection of European folk stories, predating the famous collections of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Structured as a frame story similar to the Decameron, it features fifty tales told over the course of five days by ten storytellers. These narratives include the earliest literary versions of world-famous tales such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Hansel and Gretel.
Rich in Baroque imagery and Neapolitan wit, the work blends the fantastical with the grotesque, offering a vivid glimpse into seventeenth-century imagination. Basile's storytelling is characterized by its earthy humor, intricate metaphors, and sophisticated narrative structures that appeal to both casual readers and scholars of folklore. This collection is a vibrant masterpiece of world literature that helped define the fairy tale genre. Readers will discover a world where magic and reality intertwine, providing a foundational experience for anyone interested in the roots of oral tradition and literary fantasy.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you may see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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