One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories: Right Pleasaunte To Relate In All Goodly Companie By Way Of Joyance And Joll.

Long before the modern short story, there was the pleasure of tales told aloud in good company, and this lively old collection preserves exactly that spirit in a hundred short entertainments.

What it's about

Gathered under a suitably ornate title, these hundred stories belong to the great European tradition of the framed tale, cousins to Boccaccio and Chaucer. They are brief, pointed, and frequently ribald: stories of clever tricks, amorous intrigues, foolish husbands, quick-witted lovers, and the small human comedies of desire and deception. Rendered in a deliberately old-fashioned, mock-archaic English, they are offered as amusements to be shared aloud for the enjoyment of the assembled company.

Themes

Wit, appetite, and human folly are the recurring materials here, along with a frank, unsentimental view of love and marriage. The tales delight in reversal and surprise, in the triumph of cunning over pomposity, and in laughter as its own reward. There is a worldly, forgiving humour running through them.

Why it still matters

Collections like this shaped the whole later history of comic and narrative fiction, and they preserve a candid picture of medieval and Renaissance manners that more decorous sources leave out. Reading them is a reminder that entertainment has a long lineage, and that ribaldry and craft have always gone together.

Who it's for

For readers who enjoy Boccaccio and Chaucer, lovers of comic and picaresque storytelling, and anyone in the mood for short, mischievous tales with an antique flavour. Best sampled a few at a time, in the spirit intended.