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Don Quixote

  • El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha,
  • The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha
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Don Quixote
Type
Novel
Language
[Multiple languages]
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Wikipedia

Don Quixote, the full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. Considered a founding work of Western literature, it is often said to be the first modern novel. Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time.

The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, an hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha. He recruits as his squire a simple farm labourer, Sancho Panza, who brings a unique, earthy wit to Don Quixote's lofty rhetoric. In the first part of the book, Don Quixote does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story meant for the annals of all time. However, as Salvador de Madariaga pointed out in his Guía del lector del Quijote (1972 [1926]), referring to "the Sanchification of Don Quixote and the Quixotization of Sancho", as "Sancho's spirit ascends from reality to illusion, Don Quixote's declines from illusion to reality".

The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers (1844), and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) as well as the word quixotic. Mark Twain referred to the book as having "swept the world's admiration for the mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence". It has been described by some as the greatest work ever written.

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Editions

NameFormatISBNRelease Date
Don QuixotePaperback?1605
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Identifiers

LibraryThing Work
7730623
MusicBrainz Work ID
e07997c8-779e-4547-99e3-549c37f3cf65
OpenLibrary Work ID
OL273386W
Wikidata ID
Q480

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Last Modified
2019-12-08