Don Quixote is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures of a nameless hidalgo (at the end of Part II given the name Alonso Quixano) who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to set out to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is, and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story.
Published in two volumes, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered one of the most influential works of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has had major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), as well as the word "quixotic". Arthur Schopenhauer cited Don Quixote as one of the four greatest novels ever written, along with Tristram Shandy, La Nouvelle Héloïse, and Wilhelm Meister.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547 – 1616), often simply called Cervantes, was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright.
His major work, Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern European novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded among the best works of fiction ever written. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").He was dubbed El Príncipe de los Ingenios ("The Prince of Wits".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes
Peter Anthony Bois (1663 – 1718), born Pierre Antoine Motteux was an English author, playwright, and translator. Motteux was a significant figure in the evolution of English journalism in his era, as the publisher and editor of The Gentleman's Journal, "the first English magazine," from 1692 to 1694.
Motteux produced an important translation of Cervantes' Don Quixote; this 4-volume 1700-03 edition (3rd edition in 1712) was credited as "translated from the original by many hands and published by Peter Motteux." Very popular in its own era, Motteux's version of the work has been condemned by later, more rigorous translators, for:
- adopting a frivolous style, compared to the mock-serious and ironic tone of the original;
- turning Don Quixote and Sancho Panza into buffoons;
- casting the work in a "Franco-Cockney" rather than a Spanish ambience.
John Ormsby, in his Introduction to his own 1885 translation of the novel, called Motteux's version "worse than worthless."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Anthony_Motteux
Life of Cervantes: v. 1, p. i-xlii
Illustrations designed and etched by Al. Lalauze
On spine: Don Quixote
