The Spanish ballad is well documented from the 16th to the 20th century in substantial, though declining, oral sources, chiefly in Castilian but also in Judeo-Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese. The 70 ballads in this volume are taken from 16th-century printed sources, from the period when the ballad of tradition, sung and orally transmitted, was polished for printing by poets, musicians and editors to meet the taste of the times. There is a general introduction, notes prefacing each group, and others about origins, background, variants, modern oral version, English translations, following each ballad, a bibliography and a glossary of difficult terms. The book is part of the BCP Spanish Texts series, designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing high school and undergraduate markets for texts in the Spanish language. Each text comes with English notes and vocabulary, and with an introduction by an editor with an expert knowledge both of the work and of the literary and cultural context in which it was produced.