Don Quixote

Don Quixote originally entitled El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha is Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes's most famous novel, perhaps the most famous work of Spanish literature and a seminal work in modern Western writing. The publication of the book is divided in two stages, first part was published in 1605 and the second one in 1615. Due to the succes of the first part, in 1614 it was published an apocryphal second part often called El Quijote de Avellaneda after the name of it's author, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda.

It tells the story of a sadly deluded and idealistic nobleman, considered man by most, who decides to set out on chivalric quests like the knights-errant of old. The adjective quixotic (romantically or foolishly idealistic), and the phrase 'tilting at windmills' (attempting something too great out of idealism, delusion or foolhardiness) come to us from this book.

Quixote is the traditional spelling, but in modern Spanish it is rendered 'Quijote'.