La Celestina
Fernando de Rojas (Author), Patricia S. Finch (Editor)
A work entirely in dialogue published in 1499. Sometimes called in English The Spanish Bawd, it is attributed to Fernando de Rojas, a descendant of converted Jews, who practiced law and, later in life, served as an alderman of Talavera de la Reina, an important commercial center near Toledo. The story tells of a bachelor, Calisto, who uses the old procuress and bawd Celestina to start an affair with Melibea, an unmarried girl kept in seclusion by her parents. Though the two use the rhetoric of courtly love, sex -- not marriage -- is their aim. When he dies in an accident, she commits suicide. The name Celestina[3] has become synonymous with "procuress" in Spanish, especially an older woman used to further an illicit affair, and is a literary archetype of this character, the masculine counterpart being Pandarus
Print Book, Spanish, 2003
First edition
Cervantes & Co, Newark, Delaware, 2003