Don Quixote: Volume I

Published more than 400 years ago, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes continues to make its presence felt on our cultural and philosophical understanding. The book's titular character is on a tragic, comic, ill-considered quest to regain the chivalric honor and prestige of times gone by. Along with his companion, Sancho, he sets out on a journey – a journey through a miraculous landscape in which nothing is as it seems – and the failings and ideals of our hero elicit our sympathy, humor, and regret in equal measure.

Even today, centuries later, we still apply the adjective "quixotic" when describing something fanciful or not rooted in reality. We still consider a fruitless or ill-perceived crusade to be "tilting at windmills." We still, sometimes, see the wizened face of Don Quixote himself when we look upon our own mortal endeavors and schemes. Such is the power of Miguel de Cervantes' writing. Considered by some to be the first modern novel, Cervantes' work is a masterpiece of the prose form, and it is rightfully enjoyed and pored over by readers and scholars to this very day.