Distinguished as an astute politician, Don Juan Manuel is an author of the highest eminence, and, considering the circumstances of his stormy life, his voluminousness is remarkable. The _Libro de los sabios_, a treatise called _Engeños de Guerra_ and the _Libro de cantares_, a collection of verses, were composed between 1320 and 1327; but they have disappeared together with the _Libro de la caballería_ (written during the winter of 1326), and the _Reglas como se debe trovar_, a metrical treatise assigned to 1328-1334. Of his surviving writings, Juan Manuel's _Crónica abreviada_ was compiled between 1319 and 1325, while the _Libro de la caza_ must have been written between 1320 and 1329; and during this period of nine years the _Crónica de España_, the _Crónica complida_, and the _Tratado sobre las armas_ were produced. The _Libro del caballero et del escudero_ was finished before the end of 1326; the first book of the _Libro de los estados_ was finished on the 22nd of May 1330, while the second was begun five days later; the first book of _El Conde Lucanor_ was written in 1328, the second in 1330, and the fourth is dated 12th of June 1335. We are unable to assign to any precise date the devout _Tractado_ on the Virgin, dedicated to the prior of the monastery at Peñafiel, to which Don Juan Manuel bequeathed his manuscripts; but it seems probable that the _Libro de los frailes predicadores_ is slightly later than the _Libro de los estados_; that the _Libro de los castigos_ (left unfinished, and therefore known by the alternative title of _Libro infinido_) was written not later than 1333, and that the treatise _De las maneras de amor_ was composed between 1334 and 1337.