GajimaruClassics.
Don QuixoteOn the coverDon Quixote (engraving), Gustave Doré, 1863
Don Quixote
An aging gentleman reads so many tales of chivalry that he loses his wits, dubs himself a knight, and rides out with his earthy squire Sancho Panza to right wrongs in a world that no longer wants knights. The first modern novel, and one of the funniest.
Character notes and context for the chapter you’ve read.
The first modern novel and still one of the funniest, but it sneaks up on you, until a deluded old man chasing an impossible ideal becomes the most human figure in fiction.
SettingRural Spain, c. 1600
Spain’s golden age, just past its peak: tales of knights-errant were the bestselling pulp of the day, and a country proud of its chivalric past was sliding, unnoticed, into decline.
On screen & beyond
- Grigori Kozintsev’s Soviet film (1957)
- The stage musical Man of La Mancha (1965)