Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) π

Description
Don Quixote is a novel that doesnβt need much introduction. Not only is it widely considered the greatest Spanish literary work of all time, one of the greatest literary works in history, and a cornerstone of the Western literary canon, itβs also considered one of the firstβif not the firstβmodern novels.
This Standard Ebooks edition is believed to be the first ebook edition of Don Quixote to feature a full transcription of translator John Ormsbyβs nearly 1,000 footnotes. Ormsby as an annotator deftly explains obscure passages, gives background on the life and times of 1600s Spain, references decisions from other contemporary translators, and doesnβt hold back from sharing his views on the geniusβand flawsβof Cervantesβ greatest work.
The story is of the eponymous Don Quixote, a country noble who, in his old age, reads too many chivalric romances and goes mad. After convincing his grubby servant, Sancho Panza, to join him as his squire, he embarks on an absurd and comic quest to do good and right wrongs.
Today Don Quixoteβs two volumes are published as a single work, but their publication came ten years apart. Cervantes saw great success with the publication of his first volume, and appeared to have little desire to write a second volume until a different author wrote a spurious, inferior sequel. This kicked Cervantes into gear and he wrote volume two, a more serious and philosophical volume than the largely comic first volume.
Despite being written in 1605 and translated in 1885, Don Quixote contains a surprising amount of slapstick laughsβeven for the modern readerβand narrative devices still seen in todayβs fiction, including meta-narratives, frame narratives, and metafiction. Many scenes (like Quixoteβs attack on the windmills) and characters (like Sancho Panza and Lothario) are so famous that theyβre ingrained in our collective culture.
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- Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Read book online Β«Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (electric book reader TXT) πΒ». Author - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of no great bodily size, but he was a very great wag; he was of a sallow complexion, but very sharp-witted, somewhere about four-and-twenty years of age, with a round face, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all indications of a mischievous disposition and a love of fun and jokes; and of this he gave a sample as soon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees before him and saying, βLet me kiss your mightinessβs hand, SeΓ±or Don Quixote of La Mancha, for, by the habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no more than the first four orders, your worship is one of the most famous knights-errant that have ever been, or will be, all the world over. A blessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of your great deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took the trouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilian vulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people!β
Don Quixote made him rise, and said, βSo, then, it is true that there is a history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it?β
βSo true is it, seΓ±or,β said Samson, βthat my belief is there are more than twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day. Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed, and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and I am persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there will not be a translation of it.β459
βOne of the things,β here observed Don Quixote, βthat ought to give most pleasure to a virtuous and eminent man is to find himself in his lifetime in print and in type, familiar in peopleβs mouths with a good name; I say with a good name, for if it be the opposite, then there is no death to be compared to it.β
βIf it goes by good name and fame,β said the bachelor, βyour worship alone bears away the palm from all the knights-errant; for the Moor in his own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set before us your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, your fortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well as wounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worship and my lady DoΓ±a Dulcinea del Tobosoβ ββ
βI never heard my lady Dulcinea called DoΓ±a,β observed Sancho here; βnothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so here already the history is wrong.β
βThat is not an objection of any importance,β replied Carrasco.
βCertainly not,β said Don Quixote; βbut tell me, seΓ±or bachelor, what deeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history?β
βOn that point,β replied the bachelor, βopinions differ, as tastes do; some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to be Briareuses and giants; others by that of the fulling mills; one cries up the description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance of two droves of sheep; another that of the dead body on its way to be buried at Segovia; a third says the liberation of the galley slaves is the best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair with the Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan.β
βTell me, seΓ±or bachelor,β said Sancho at this point, βdoes the adventure with the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering after dainties?β
βThe sage has left nothing in the ink-bottle,β replied Samson; βhe tells all and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cut in the blanket.β
βI cut no capers in the blanket,β returned Sancho; βin the air I did, and more of them than I liked.β
βThere is no human history in the world, I suppose,β said Don Quixote, βthat has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous adventures.β
βFor all that,β replied the bachelor, βthere are those who have read
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