Lazarillo de Tormes and the Swindler: Two Spanish Picaresque Novels (Penguin Classics)

The two short novels in this volume follow the adventures of two unlikely heroes-delinquent pícaros living by their wits among corrupt priests and prostitutes, beggars and idle gentlemen, thieves, tricksters, and murderers. Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), published anonymously, provided a literary model for Cervantes' Don Quixote and describes the ingenious ruses employed by a boy from Salamanca to outwit a succession of disreputable masters. Francisco de Quevedo's The Swindler (1626) is a comic yet brutal and sordid account of a servant who wants to become a gentleman but ends up a cardsharp and common criminal.

Author: Anonymous

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Publication Date: August 26, 2003

Number of Pages: 240 pages

Language: English

Binding: Paperback

ISBN-10: 0140449000

ISBN-13: 9780140449006