A gripping novel of romance and adventure, the Persiles will moreover captivate anyone interested in Cervantes' development as a novelist; the culture of the Counter-Reformation; romance as a narrative genre; gender studies; literary theory; and the study of early modern commerce, exploration, empire, and anthropology. New to this edition of Celia Richmond Weller and Clark A. Colahan's critically acclaimed translation are an updated Introduction and bibliography reflecting recent directions in scholarship on the Persiles , as well as reproductions of woodcuts from a work believed to have served Cervantes as a key anthropological source.