"Is it not strange to see how readily this unfortunate gentleman

believes all these lying fictions merely because they resemble

the style and manner of his foolish books?" --Cervantes, Don Quixote.

"Did I not tell you, sir, to mind what you were doing, for those were only windmills? Nobody could have mistaken them unless he had windmills in his brain." --Cervantes, Don Quixote.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra wrote the first book of Don Quixote in 1605. Don Quixote is the story of a Spanish gentleman’s infatuation with the medieval practice of knight-errantry. The piece represents the first time literary creativity is expressed in the form of the novel. It is superlative fiction: Thomas Macaulay called it "the best novel in the world, beyond comparison."

Cervantes’ purpose is to illustrate that we are prey to our illusions, and further to show what may happen when what we want to believe about reality becomes too far removed from what reality actually is. Sudden defeat brings Don Quixote to his senses: "A man," he says as he lay dying, "must not deceive his soul."

Cervantes was born in 1547. He lived most of his life in poverty, and although the first book of Don Quixote was an instant success, he received little money from it. He died in 1616, only one year after publication of the immortal work’s second book.