Don Quijote de la Mancha (Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra's El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, and is now customarily read and published as a single unified novel rather than as separate volumes. It follows the aging Spanish gentleman Alonso Quijano, who loses himself in too many chivalric romances and reinvents himself as the knight-errant Don Quixote, riding out with his pragmatic squire Sancho Panza on a string of misadventures across La Mancha. Regarded as the first modern novel and a founding work of Western literature, it remains among the most translated and best-selling books ever written.