Pablo De Segovia, the Spanish Sharper

Written by the Spanish poet and satirist Francisco de Quevedo around 1604 and first printed in 1626, this is one of the sharpest of the picaresque novels. Its narrator, Don Pablos of Segovia, is the son of a thieving barber and a suspected witch, and he sets out to shed his low origins and pass himself off as a gentleman. His schemes carry him through beggars, con men, actors, and cutthroats across Spain, but every attempt to rise ends in fresh humiliation. Quevedo’s prose is packed with wordplay and grotesque comedy, and beneath the laughter lies a bleak view of ambition and social pretension. This translation is offered as a free PDF and EPUB edition.