Lazarillo de Tormes and The Swindler

The two short novels in this volume follow the adventures of two unlikely heroes-delinquent pícarosliving 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 Quixoteand 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.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) was a distinguished and prolific writer of prose and poetry but chose a political career. Towards the end of his life he was imprisoned in a monastery as a result of his writing. The Author of Lazarillo de Tormes, who published the novel anonymously, is thought to come from sixteenth-century Erasmian or New Christian circles. Michael Alpert, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Contemporary History of Spain at the University of Westminster, has published several books and articles on Spanish history.