Don Quixote (Barnes & Noble Classics)

 

Widely acknowledged as the first modern novel, Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote features two of the most famous characters ever created: Don Quixote, the tall, bewildered, and half-crazy knight, and Sancho Panza, his rotund and incorrigibly loyal squire. The comic and unforgettable dynamic between these two legendary figures has served as the blueprint for countless novels written since Cervantes’s time.

An immediate success when first published in 1604, Don Quixote tells the story of a middle-aged Spanish gentleman who, obsessed with the chivalrous ideals found in romantic books, decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. Seated upon his lean nag of a horse, and accompanied by the pragmatic Sancho Panza, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain seeking glory and grand adventure. Along the way the duo meet a dazzling assortment of characters whose diverse beliefs and perspectives reveal how reality and imagination are frequently indistinguishable.

Profound, powerful, and hilarious, Don Quixote continues to capture the imaginations of audiences all over the world.

Features illustrations by Gustave Doré.

Carole Slade specializes in late medieval and early modern European literature.Her publications include St. Teresa of Avila: Author of a Heroic Life and Approaches to Teaching Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. She teaches Comparative Literature at Columbia University.