The Story of Don Juan

The decline and fall of the famous libertine

Don Giovanni is a passionate lover of life and nearly 1,000 women. One night, the Commendatore of Calatrava catches him kissing his daughter, and challenges him to a duel. Don Giovanni wins the duel, which of course means that the Commendatore is slain-and so begins the end for the incorrigible seducer.

Never, ever had Don Juan killed a man. So he stood there, looking at that face which only a moment before had been alive and was now like stone. He would have continued to stare at it, in fascination, for quite a while, but he heard someone approaching, and he couldn’t be discovered there, with the sword in his hand and the bloody corpse of the Commendatore. So he cast a last glance at the dead man, gave him a nod of farewell and hurried away.

Translated by Ann Goldstein
96pp
Published 24/10/2013
ISBN 9781782690153
Pushkin Children’s Special Hardback 257mm x 200mm
£14.99

About Save the Story

The Story of Don Juan is one of ten titles in the Save the Story series published by Pushkin Children’s in 2013 and 2014. Save the Story is a library of favourite stories from around the world, retold for today’s children by some of the best contemporary writers. The stories they retell span cultures (from Ancient Greece to nineteenth-century Russia), time and genres (from comedy and romance to mythology and the realist novel), and they have inspired all manner of artists for many generations.

Save the Story is a mission in book form: saving great stories from oblivion by retelling them for a new, younger generation.

The Save the Story series includes:

Don Juan by Alessandro Baricco
Cyrano de Bergerac by Stefano Benni
The Nose by Andrea Camilleri
Gulliver by Jonathan Coe
The Betrothed by Umberto Eco
Captain Nemo by Dave Eggers
Gilgamesh by Yiyun Li
King Lear by Melania G. Mazzucco
Antigone by Ali Smith
Crime and Punishment by A. B. Yehoshua