No Spanish voice was heard during the fifty years of his active intellectual life which could compare with his in the strength of his passion nor in the profound seriousness with which he challenged every complacency... The central idea in all his fiction is the struggle to create faith from doubt and ethics from inner strife.

From the creator of Don Quixote, the most famous figure in Spanish literature, comes this trio of popular novellas: "La gitanilla," a gypsy romance, "El coloquio de los perros," a lively dialogue between two dogs, and "Rinconete y Cortadillo," a day in the underworld of eighteenth-century Seville.

Written in the baroque language of Cervantes' era, these works are not easily read in the original Spanish. This new English translation presents as complete and literal an interpretation as possible.