"Don Quijote" by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is a Spanish novel published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. A minor nobleman reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to become a knight-errant, recruiting a simple farm laborer as his squire. Together they embark on adventures where windmills become giants and inns transform into castles. This founding work of Western literature explores the collision between fantasy and reality, as its idealistic hero confronts a world that refuses to match his imagination.