El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. [The History of Don Quixote].

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel De.

El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, Compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. [The History of Don Quixote].

New York: The Hispanic Society of America, c. 1905.

Cervantes, through his magnum opus Don Quixote, holds a place of unparalleled importance in the realm of literature. Chronicling the adventures of a hero who carries his enthusiasm and self-deception to unintentional and comic ends, Don Quixote is widely considered the first modern European novel, a classic of Western literature, and among the best works of fiction ever written. Cervantes’ influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called "la lengua de Cervantes." Don Quixote remains one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time. "The first part of Don Quixote came out in 1605... It was the variety, the liveliness, and the gibes at the famous, which won it instant fame... Within months Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had become legendary... Don Quixote is one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times, and there are very few who have not at one time or another felt themselves to be Don Quixote confronting the windmills of Sancho Panza at the inn" (PMM). For Cervantes and the readers of his day, Don Quixote was a one-volume book published in 1605, divided internally into four parts, not the first part of a two-part set. The mention in the 1605 book of further adventures yet to be told was totally conventional, does not indicate any authorial plans for a continuation, and was not taken seriously by the book's first readers. The second part, which is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception and "sophistry", was not published for a decade after the first part, in 1615, the year before Cervantes's death.