If some of the chapters of this monograph look strangely familiar, it is because, during a long gestation period, they have appeared, usually in a different form, or have been delivered orally and occasionally published in the actas of a learned conference. Textual antecedents and first drafts of some of the chapters in this book can be found in the bibliography. It was my original intention to concentrate on humour in Celestina, but the topic took some unexpected turns, and the relationship of Celestina with its sources – what we now, unfortunately, call intertextuality – became a prime consideration, along with the question of genre in its most recent manifestation as ‘novelistic discourse’.

I am indebted to my former Westfield colleague and dear friend Alan Deyermond, who has seen (or heard) much of this material and commented on it. My mentor Stephen Gilman, who disagreed with my conclusions about genre and Celestina but gamely agreed to look at them and discuss them with me, died before this little book went to press, and I would like it to dedicate to his memory. Without his teaching and influence I would never have come to Celestina studies.