Deceived husbands, adulteresses, opportunists and ruthless maids, nosy neighbors, mistresses, prostitutes, swindlers, courtiers who amuse themselves with their boredom, arguing couples, ignorant peasants satisfied in their ignorance, semi-literate officials, aristocratic villagers, fortune seekers, and candlelight lovers...

The eight lively episodes of this volume, representative of life in Spain during the time of Cervantes - the Spain of the Golden Age but also of moral and institutional decline - present us with a diverse panorama of human types and humorous situations, with a realism and energy that disarm.

In these enjoyable readings - one-act comedies that possess all the wit and immediacy of Don Quixote's dialogues - the versatile and multifaceted Miguel de Cervantes, "author of one book" in the consciousness of the majority of readers worldwide, displays his comedic and satirical talent, while simultaneously exercising, "with a velvet glove" but also with surgical precision, criticism of social realities that unexpectedly reveal themselves as familiar and timeless.