Don Quixote

Don Quixote is a novel by Miguel de Cervantes, published in two parts: the first appeared in early 1605 under the title El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, and the second, Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, in 1615. Printing of the first part was finished in December 1604, and the royal privilege was signed in September of that year, so the text was already complete and approved before it reached the public. The edition was commissioned by the bookseller Francisco de Robles and printed by Juan de la Cuesta's workshop in Madrid, a press of modest quality that left many typographical errors.

The story follows Alonso Quijano, a minor nobleman from La Mancha who, after reading far too many chivalric romances, decides to become a knight-errant under the name Don Quixote. He is accompanied by Sancho Panza, a farm labourer whose down-to-earth good sense contrasts with his master's lofty rhetoric. In the first part, Don Quixote interprets the world through the models of his reading: windmills become giants, inns turn into castles, and a village woman is transformed into the peerless Dulcinea. The book blends adventure, embedded tales and reflections on madness, truth and fiction. Its narrator presents himself as a translator of an Arabic historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli, a device that adds ironic distance.

The novel is largely a satire of the chivalric tradition and of courtly conventions, and it is often regarded as the first great modern novel. Its second part features characters who have already read the first, making it an early example of metafiction. Meanwhile, in 1614, an unauthorised sequel signed by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda appeared, which offended Cervantes and prompted him to write his own continuation. The work was an immediate success, although its author earned little from it, having sold his rights to the publisher. Since then it has been translated into countless languages and has influenced European and world fiction, as well as everyday speech, where the word "quixotic" describes impractical idealism.

Critics have found in it many layers: a meditation on the gap between illusion and reality, a satire of the literary fashions of its time, and a portrait of early seventeenth-century Spanish society. Its balance between comedy and melancholy, between the protagonist's madness and his squire's lucidity, accounts for much of its lasting appeal.