This is the story of Miguel Santos, the alter ego of Gil Blas. He was not Casanova nor Don Juan but his many adventures with swindlers and bandits, and the many romantic entanglements of the hero should not be forgotten and shelf-bound by the archaic idiom of the Enlightenment Period. His story shocked that era's sensibilities--but in a genteel way. It might have been the "Lady Chatterly's Lover", the "Peyton Place" or "The Fifty Shades of Grey" of its time. For the modern reader the rambling sentences and passive verbiage of the original novel can be daunting, especially in a book of 320,000 words written over a 20-year period. This adaptation is not a new translation. It is an abridged version of the original that has been ruthlessly slashed and edited; for that reason the title and hero have been renamed. It is a sugar-coated introduction to the classic which may inspire the reader to tackle the original