The Swindler

The Swindler, known in Spanish as El Buscon and by the fuller original title Historia de la vida del Buscon, llamado Don Pablos, is a picaresque novel by the Spanish writer Francisco de Quevedo, composed around 1604 and circulated in manuscript before its first official publication in Zaragoza in 1626. As Quevedo's only novel, it follows Don Pablos, a young man whose repeated attempts to rise into gentlemanly status and respectability collapse through a chain of linked misfortunes and failed schemes, and it functions simultaneously as biting social satire of Spanish society and as a showcase for Quevedo's dense wordplay, advancing the pessimistic picaresque premise that a person born to dishonor cannot escape their origin. The novel also preserves valuable documentation of Germania, the thieves' cant and period argot of its era, giving it lasting significance for the historical study of the Spanish language alongside its literary standing.