Decameron and content warnings

Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron is a book in which there's a pandemic, and a group of seven young women and three young men decide to practice social distancing in a secluded villa just outside of Florence.

During two weeks of lockdown, they structure their time wisely, and among other things they spend the evenings telling each other stories. The book is a collection of those stories.

The stories vary from the erotic to the tragic, and may trigger some reader. Boccaccio is aware of that, so he starts each chapter with a one line summary that is explicitly intended as a content warning, to give the reader a choice in whether to read the story, or skip to the next one.

Boccaccio explains this in the book itself:

However, those who read these tales can leave those they dislike and read those they like. I do not want to deceive anybody, and so all these tales bear written at the head a title explaining what they contain.

(link to version in original language)

On top of the very relatable setting, the diversity of stories, the empathy in the narration, the gender inclusivity, and the respect for the reader, it's a pretty good book. It should even be out of copyright!

It was written around year 1350.