The "Novelas Exemplares" were first published in 1613, three years
before the death of Cervantes. They are all original, and have the air
of being drawn from his personal experience and observation. Ticknor, in
his "History of Spanish Literature," says of them, and of the
"Impertinent Curiosity," inserted in the first part of Don Quixote:--

"Their value is different, for they are written with different views,
and in a variety of style greater than he has elsewhere shown; but most
of them contain touches of what is peculiar in his talent, and are full
of that rich eloquence and of those pleasing descriptions of natural
scenery which always flow so easily from his pen. They have little in
common with the graceful story-telling spirit of Boccaccio and his
followers, and still less with the strictly practical tone of Don Juan
Manuel's tales; nor, on the other hand, do they approach, except in the
case of the 'Impertinent Curiosity,' the class of short novels which
have been frequent in other countries within the last century. The more,
therefore, we examine them, the more we shall find that they are
original in their composition and general tone, and that they are
strongly marked with the original genius of their author, as well as
with the more peculiar traits of the national character,--the ground, no
doubt, on which they have always been favourites at home, and less
valued than they deserve to be abroad. As works of invention, they rank,
among their author's productions, next after Don Quixote; in correctness
and grace of style they stand before it.... They are all fresh from the
racy soil of the national character, as that character is found in
Andalusia, and are written with an idiomatic richness, a spirit, and a
grace, which, though they are the oldest tales of their class in Spain,
have left them ever since without successful rivals."

The first three tales in this volume have merely undergone the revision