Don Quixote

(, , see spelling and pronunciation below), fully titled ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha") is an early novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Cervantes created a fictional origin for the story based upon a manuscript by the invented Moorish historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli. Published in two volumes a decade apart, Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Golden Age and perhaps the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears at the top of lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. The novel's structure is in episodic form. It is a humorous novel in the picaresco style of the late sixteenth century. The full title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Span.) means "to be quick with inventiveness". Although the novel is farcical, the second half is serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Quixote has served as... full article at wikipedia