In a pungent new translation by Virginia Brown, [Boccaccio's] famous women hold up very well indeed...The success of <i>Famous Women</i> suggests that [Renaissance] ladies read their Boccaccio as we are invited to read him: with forbearance for his foibles and delight in the tales he tells with such gusto and skill.

- Ingrid D. Rowland, New York Times Book Review

For good or evil, as wife, mother, or whore, these women have the splendor of clarity; their individual destinies are sharply defined.

- Tim Parks, New York Review of Books

Whatever his intentions--and it may be that feminism was a long-term outgrowth of the humanism that he pioneered--Boccaccio launched a lasting genre that urged women, as well as men, to reach for glory, and gave them examples to live by.

- David Quint, The New Republic