Don Quixote

Cervantes ́tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant, tilts at windmills and battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams, Dulcinea del Toboso, has fascinated generations of readers, and inspired other creative artists such as Flauberts, Picasso and Richard Strauss. The tall, thin knight and his short, fat squirre, Sancho Panza, have found their way into films, cartoons, and even computer games. Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day, the "books of chivalry", this precursor of the modern nonel broadened and deepened into a shophisticated, comic account of the contradictions of human nature. Peter Motteux ́s fine eighteenth-century translation, acknowledged as one on the best, brilliantly succeeds in communicating the spirit od the original Spanisch.