Lázaro is a boy of humble origins from Salamanca. After his stepfather is accused of thievery, his mother asks a wily blind beggar to take on Lazarillo (little Lázaro) as his apprentice. Lázaro develops his cunning while serving the blind beggar and several other masters, while also learning to take on his father's practice.

A History of the Spanish Novel is the only volume in English that offers comprehensive coverage of the history of the Spanish novel, from the sixteenth century to the present day, with chapters written by some of the world-leading experts in the field.

Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) is here offered facing the brilliant Tudor English translation of David Rowland of Anglesey (1586). Ostensibly a racy autobiography of a young rogue and his succession of masters, in reality it is a comical and caustic exposé of sixteenth century Spanish society, and especially the Church.

The Life of Catalina de Erauso, the Lieutenant Nun: An Early Modern Autobiography examines Vida y sucesos de la Monja Alférez as a form of autobiography through a comparative study with early-modern secular life narratives: the picaresque novels La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, y de sus fortunas y adversidades (anonymous), La pícara Justina by Francisco López de Úbeda, the chronicle Relación que dio Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca de lo acaescido en las Indias en la armada donde yva por governador Pánfilo de Narváez desde el año de veynte y siete hasta el año de treinta y seis que bolvió a Sevilla con tres de su compañía by Cabeza de Vaca and the soldier’s narrative Vida, nacimiento, padres, y crianza del Capitán Alonso de Contreras natural de Madrid Cavallero del orden de San Juan Comendador de una de sus encomiendas en Castilla, escrita por el mismo by Alonso de Contreras. Two questions are addressed: How is Vida y sucesos similar to or different from picaresque novels, chronicles of the New World, and soldiers’ narratives? How are the similarities and differences between Vida y sucesos and these forms of writing related to theoretical parameters for an autobiography? In order to conduct this comparative analysis, four theoretical parameters are established for assessing autobiographical texts. These parameters (coincidence of narrator and protagonist, historical referentiality, whether the subjective narration has a plausible basis in the experience and belief structure of the narrator and the intention of the narrator to tell an autobiographical truth) are based upon the critical approach of hybridity and intersubjectivity, but also draw upon related theoretical work. This book argues that Vida y sucesos should be considered as a form of autobiography, with the understanding that autobiography is an intersubjective and hybrid form or a forma fronteriza.

Anonymously published in 1554, Lazarillo de Tormes remains a centerpiece of Renaissance literature and arguably the most popular example of the picaresque novel. This Norton Critical Edition is based on Ilan Stavans’ new translation, which accurately captures the verve of the original. The Norton Critical Edition also includes: An introduction and explanatory annotations by Ilan Stavans. Contextual materials highlighting the novella’s strong anticlerical views and its affinities with Don Quixote in depictions of social hierarchy in Renaissance Spain, as well as excerpts from Juan de Luna’s Lazarillo sequel. Eight critical studies, by David Gitlitz, Jane W. Albrecht, Louis C. Pérez, Edward H. Friedman, Howard Mancing, T. Anthony Perry, Gabriel H. Lovett, and E. Herman Hespelt. A Selected Bibliography.