Don Quixote

Cervantes's novel, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, follows a poor Spanish gentleman who reads so many tales of chivalry that he loses his wits, dons old armour and rides out on his bony horse Rocinante, with the peasant Sancho Panza as squire, to right the world's wrongs in the name of his imaginary lady, Dulcinea, taking windmills for giants, flocks of sheep for armies and a barber's basin for a magic helmet. In the second part, people he meets have read about his adventures, a duke and duchess play elaborate tricks on him, and Sancho governs an 'island' with surprising wisdom.

Often called the first modern European novel, it mocks the romances of chivalry while reflecting on dreams, reality, madness and nobility. Cervantes even pretends that the story comes from an Arabic manuscript by a historian named Cide Hamete Benengeli, bought in the market of Toledo. This translation, of 1885, is by John Ormsby. Cervantes's shorter tales are in The Exemplary Novels.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) lived a life as adventurous as any novel. As a soldier he was wounded at the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571 and lost the use of his left hand; on his way home he was captured by Barbary corsairs and spent five years as a captive in Algiers, where he tried to escape four times before he was ransomed.

Back in Spain he worked as a tax collector, went to prison more than once and wrote plays and stories with little success, until Don Quixote in 1605 made him famous. He died in Madrid in April 1616, the same month as Shakespeare. Memories of Algiers, and a pretend Arab historian, appear throughout his work.