This is Romeo and Juliet as you've never experienced it before... By the time William Shakespeare penned the first words of the most famous romantic tragedy of our time, another storyteller had already written Romeo and Juliet. In fact, Matteo Bandello's stories had been translated into multiple languages across Europe before the doomed lovers inspired Shakespeare to create his world-famous play. In this edition, Bandello's original tale has been translated and formatted for the modern reader. In contrast to Shakespearean English, Bandello's beautiful writing has a clarity and directness through which we hear, as never before, the words a real Romeo and Juliet might have said to each other. The star-crossed lovers we know are there, just as in the play, but their troubles are set in a real Verona, that Bandello knew personally. As the tragedy unfolds to its bitter end, Bandello's heartrending story offers readers a more intimate experience of the anguish and joys that captured Shakespeare and an entire continent. Hidden for years in the ivory towers of scholarly study, Bandello's influential tale finds new life in Michael Curtotti's translation for students and lovers of literature alike. (In addition to the translation this edition includes (in parallel-language layout) an extensive introduction and afterword, a table of scene by scene comparisons between the Bandello and Shakespeare versions and a table of characters).