Don Quixote By Miguel De Cervantes (Paperback, 1992)

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Translated by P A Motteux With an Introduction & Notes by Stephen Boyd University College Cork Cervantes’ tale of the deranged gentleman who turns knight-errant tilts at windmills & battles with sheep in the service of the lady of his dreams Dulcinea del Toboso has fascinated generations of readers & inspired other creative artists such as Flaubert Picasso & Richard Strauss The tall thin knight & his short fat squire Sancho Panza have found their way into films cartoons & even computer games Supposedly intended as a parody of the most popular escapist fiction of the day the ‘books of chivalry’ this precursor of the modern novel broadened & deepened into a sophisticated comic account of the contradictions of human nature On his ‘heroic’ journey Don Quixote meets characters of every class & condition from the prostitute Maritornes who is commended for her Christian charity to the Knight of the Green Coat who seems to embody some of the constraints of virtue Cervantes’ greatest work can be enjoyed on many levels all suffused with a subtle irony that reaches out to encompass the reader & does not leave the author outside its circle Peter Motteux’s fine eighteenth-century translation acknowledged as one of the best brilliantly succeeds in communicating the spirit of the original Spanish