The disenchantments of love

The Disenchantments of Love, published in Spain in 1647 by Maria de Zayas, is a stunning collection of stories about women's amorous experiences in a patriarchal and imperialistic society during the turbulent seventeenth century. Now available for the first time in English translation, the ten exemplary novelas are set within an encompassing frame story that continues from the first collection, The Enchantments of Love: Amorous and Exemplary Novels, published in 1637. These sensational and bizarre tales focus on the ways lovers deceive women in order to "get their way," through magic, cross-dressing as women, and rape - to the torture and murder of innocent women at the hands of their protectors - their fathers, brothers, and husbands. A fascinating dimension of these fast-paced narratives is what they suggest through omission, silence, and ambiguous detail: the untold story that fires the reader's imagination.