Although published nearly 400 years ago in Spanish, this parody of the chivalrous life remains amazingly familiar in translation today-perhaps from the extensive influence it has played on novelists, playwrights and even composers over the centuries, or perhaps from its eternal story of the childlike and comic view of a decayed world by a madman stuck in a golden past.

The epic tale of an eccentric country gentleman and his companion who set out as a knight and squire of old to right wrongs and punish evil in sixteenth-century Spain.

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Compiled and Edited by Charles W. Eliot in 1909, the Harvard Classics is a 51-volume Anthology of classic literature from throughout the history of western civilization. The set is sometimes called "Eliot's Five-Foot Shelf." The interior of this book is a facsimile reproduction of the 1909 edition. For the other books in this series and books of similar interest search with the keyword hcbooks.