Book I now available in print and Kindle

Trade paperback, 316 pages. And ebook. 

Cover art: Suit of armor at the Alcázar of Segovia. Photo by Sue Burke. 

+

Book I of my translation of Amadis of Gaul is now on sale in print and Kindle format.

The novel is divided into four books, and Book I is the oldest, written in the early 1330s. It starts with Amadis's birth out of wedlock. While still a boy, he falls hopelessly in love with Princess Oriana of Great Britain, and to win her love, he becomes a knight and embarks on a series of perilous adventures — rescuing damsels, kings, and kingdoms. Interwoven with these feats are the stories of Amadis's two brothers, their friends in arms, and their mortal enemies.

This edition includes:

• a preface by José Miguel Pallarés, a Spanish writer, who tells how he discovered the novel as a boy by sneaking into a locked room in his family home in a medieval town in Spain — one of the best memories of his childhood.

• an introduction providing background to the book, what inspired it, who wrote it, and how it became Europe's first best-seller.

• notes to selected chapters to help the modern reader understand some of the historic references in the text.

• an appendix discussing the relationship of Amadis of Gaul and Don Quixote de la Mancha, and the reasons why Amadis, once the favored reading of kings and emperors, disappeared as if by magic from the inventories of the libraries of Spanish noble families and fell into oblivion — but it wasn't due to Don Quixote.

Amadis of Gaul Book I at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Amadis-Gaul-Garci-Rodríguez-Montalvo/dp/1466475714/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
+