The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

About the book

Lazarillo tells his life as an explanation of his present circumstances, beginning with a childhood shaped by poverty and dependence. Service to a blind man, a priest, and a squire exposes different ways in which authority and respectability can conceal selfishness or need. Food becomes a recurring measure of the distance between what people claim and what they actually provide. The narrator's wit makes hardship entertaining without erasing its pressure, while his retrospective explanations invite readers to consider what survival has taught him to accept. This translation by Clements Markham includes historical introductory material whose confident author attribution belongs to that edition; the work is generally presented as anonymous. The narrative itself remains a sharp study of accommodation in an unequal world.

• Hunger and survival
• Respectability
• Self-justification

Why read it

For a resourceful narrator whose comic account of service continually exposes the gap between social standing and moral conduct.

English translation by Clements Markham; historical introductory attribution retained