Novelas amorosas y ejemplares

Novelas amorosas y ejemplares (1637), meaning "Novels of Romance and Exemplary Tales," is a collection of short stories by María de Zayas y Sotomayor. Zayas was a prominent 17th-century Spanish novelist and one of the first women to publish prose fiction in the Castilian dialect.1

The stories in Novelas amorosas y ejemplares are framed as tales told by women to entertain a sick companion. They primarily focus on the romantic entanglements and mistreatment of women by husbands or seducers. Zayas used melodramatic and often horrific elements in her narratives, and she used her work to critique Spanish society for leaving women vulnerable to abuse due to a lack of information and emotional resilience. This collection, along with her later works, contributed to her popularity and established her as a significant voice in Spanish literature.12