Don Quixote

is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in 1605, it is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is considered by some to be the finest book in the Spanish language. Don Quixote is almost universally accepted to be the emblematic work of Spanish literature.
The adjective "quixotic", at present meaning "idealistic and impractical", derives from the protagonist's name, and the expressions "tilting at windmills" and "fighting windmills" come from this story.
The novel actually consists of two parts: the first, titled El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, was published in 1605 (off Juan de la Cuesta's printing press in Madrid on December 20, 1604, and made available to the public on January 16, 1605) and the second, Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero Don Quixote de la Mancha, in 1615 (a year before the author's death). In 1614, between the first and second parts, a fake Don Quixote sequel was published by somebody using the pen name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. French Don Quixote specialist Dominique Aubier suspects seriously Lope de Vega of being the author of that literary jest. For this reason, Part II contains several references to an imposter, whom Quixote rails against and Part II ends with the death of Don Quixote (so no imposter could experiment again with Cervantes's character).
The plot covers the journeys and adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Alonso Quijano is an ordinary Spaniard (a hidalgo, the lowest rank of the Spanish nobility) who is obsessed with stories of knights errant (libros de caballerías), especially those written by Feliciano de Silva. His friends and family think he is crazy when he decides to take the name of Don Quixote de la Mancha and become a knight errant himself.
Don Quixote is visibly crazy. He believes ordinary inns to be enchanted castles, and their peasant girls to be beautiful princesses. He mistakes windmills for oppressive giants sent by evil enchanters. He imagines a neighboring peasant, famous for her skill at salting pork, to be Dulcinea del Toboso, the beautiful maiden to whom he has pledged love and fidelity.
Sancho Panza, his simple squire, believes his master to be a bit crazy. In particular, he knows that there is "really" no Dulcinea, but he plays along, hoping to get rich. He and Quixote agree for instance that because Dulcinea is not as pretty nor does she smell as good as she should, she "must have been enchanted", and from that point on the mission is to disenchant her.

Both master and squire undergo complex change and development throughout the story, and each character takes on attributes of the other as the novel goes on. At the end of the second book, Quixote decides on his deathbed that his actions have been madness. Sancho begs him not to give up, but to no avail. He burns all of his books of knight-errantry save for a few.

Don Quixote is often nominated as the world's greatest work of fiction. It stands in a unique position between medieval chivalric romance and the modern novel. The former consist of disconnected stories with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters.

Different ages have tended to read different things into the novel. When it was first published, it was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution it was popular in part due to its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and disenchanting—not comic at all. In the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on." By the 20th century it became clear that it was not simply a unique and great moral work, but the first true modern novel.