Heptameron

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For medieval grimoire called the Heptameron, see Pietro d'Abano.

The Gentleman's Spur catching in the Sheet
Illustration from an 1894 edition of The Tales Of The Heptameron

The Heptameron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549). It has the form of a frame narrative and was inspired by the Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. It was originally intended to contain one hundred stories covering ten days just as the Decameron does but at Marguerite’s death it was only completed as far as the second story of the eighth day. Many of the stories deal with love, lust, infidelity and other matters romantic and sexual.

The collection first appeared in print in 1558 under the title Histoires des amans fortunez edited by Pierre Boaistuau, who took considerable liberties with the original version, using only 67 of the stories, many in abbreviated form, and omitting much of the significant material between the stories. He also transposed stories and ignored their grouping into days as envisaged by the authoress. A second edition by Claude Gruget appeared only a year later in which the editor claimed to have “restored the order previously confused in the first impression”. Also the prologues and epilogues to each short story left out by Boaistuau were put back and the work was given, for the first time, the title Heptaméron (from the Greek έπτά – “seven” and ημέρα – “day”) due to the seven day time frame into which the first 70 short stories are grouped.