# Exemplary Stories

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/miguel-de-cervantes/exemplary-stories/9780140442489

![Exemplary Stories](https://quivercdn.com/covers/penguin-classics/j-c-cervantes/exemplary-stories_978-01-4044-248-9.jpg?v=2026-04-23%2004%3A42%3A58)

- Book: [Exemplary Stories](https://www.bookquiver.com/miguel-de-cervantes/exemplary-stories) ([Exemplary Stories.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/miguel-de-cervantes/exemplary-stories.md))
- Authors: [Miguel de Cervantes](https://www.bookquiver.com/miguel-de-cervantes)
- Publisher: penguin_classics
- ISBN: 978-01-4044-248-9
- Pages: 256
- Published: 2006-05-25
- Language: en_GB
- Binding: Softcover

## Description

Composed throughout Cervantes's writing life and mentioned in Don Quixote, his Exemplary Stories are among the first and finest Spanish short stories: ranging from traditional tales of love to incisive moral fables. In The Little Gipsy Girl, an Italianate romance, the nomadic life is idealised through a love affair between the beautiful Preciosa and a nobleman who agrees to live as a gipsy to win her heart. Elsewhere, the intricacies of love are further explored in tales such as The Jealous Extremaduran, while the picaresque Rinconette and Cortadillo, depicting the friendship between a card-sharper and a pickpocket, presents a very different insight into the lower classes of seventeenth-century Spain. Widely regarded as one of Cervantes's greatest stories, The Dogs' Colloquy brilliantly captures Spanish conversation and society in its depiction of a discussion between two dogs mysteriously granted the gift of speech.