Don Quixote is a novel in two parts by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes published between 1605 and 1615. The novel portrays the life of a middle-aged Spanish man who decides to become a knight, just like the characters in the works of fiction he loves. Considered to be a foundational work of Western literature and one of the first modern novels, Don Quixote is one of the most translated books of all time. It has been adapted many times for film, theater, and many other formats. This guide uses an eBook version of the 2003 HarperCollins edition, translated by Edith Grossman.

Plot Summary

Alonso Quixano is an unremarkable low-ranking member of the Spanish nobility. He lives in La Mancha in the center of Spain. As he approaches 50, he becomes bored of his life and decides to become more like the brave knights errant he reads about in his favorite books. Taking up a lance and making himself a suit of armor, he swears to challenge evildoers and protect the helpless. His niece and his housekeeper are unimpressed. He sets out on an adventure but is immediately hurt. When he returns home, he recruits a local peasant named Sancho Panza to be his squire on the promise that Alonso will make him rich and powerful. Alonso renames himself Don Quixote and names his horse Rocinante and sets out again in search of adventure. He proclaims he will achieve great glory in the name of Dulcinea del Toboso, the name he invents for a local peasant woman whom he has never met but whom he decides is a beautiful princess.

With Panza by his side, Quixote’s second adventure is more successful. However, he retains delusions about the state of the world. He challenges befuddled people to duels and tries to charge a group of windmills with his lance, believing that they are giants. He mistakes inns for castles and delivers confusing speeches on the importance of chivalry and honor. When he defeats a confused man in a duel, he wears the man’s bronze washbasin on his head, believing that it is a glorious helmet that once belonged to a famous knight. When he mixes a magical healing potion based on a recipe he has memorized from his books, Quixote and Panza take the medicine and become very ill. Despite this behavior, Quixote’s reputation grows, and Panza becomes increasingly loyal and devoted to his confused master.

Quixote’s story is interspersed with the tales and legends he hears on his travels. He listens to people read from novels while he stays at inns, and he hears gossip and folklore from the shepherds and goatherds who populate the area. Many of these stories involve tragic and farcical love, beautiful women, and men who become utterly obsessed with the objects of their affection. During this time, Quixote frees a group of men who have been sentenced to be slaves on a galley (who later rob him), he reunites a lovelorn couple who believed they would never be together, and he smashes apart the contents of an inn, completely convinced he is fighting against an evil giant.

Panza’s devotion to his master moves beyond simple promises of fame and fortune. While he is initially unsure of his master’s delusions, he becomes more convinced that Quixote may be right about the world. He tries at first to correct Quixote’s mistakes but becomes increasingly lost in a romantic unreality, just like his master. Whenever anything does not go according to plan, Quixote blames evil magicians who conspire against him. At the same time, two of Quixote’s friends try to bring his adventure to a close. Pero Perez, the priest from the village, and Master Nicholas, a local barber, try to bring Quixote back home. Eventually, they succeed in convincing Quixote the magicians have placed an enchantment on him, and they take him home, thereby ending his first adventure and the first part of the novel.

Part 2 of Don Quixote begins a short time after the end of Quixote’s earlier adventure. During this time, the narrator laments, an unscrupulous person has released a second volume of Quixote’s adventures. These stories are not authentic. As Quixote travels around Spain, he hears more and more about these fake stories. The counterfeit accounts of his deeds anger him, though he is an increasingly famous figure in the country.

Quixote convinces Panza to set out on another adventure. At the beginning of their journey, Panza tells Quixote that a magician has placed an enchantment on Dulcinea so that she appears to be an unremarkable peasant woman rather than the beautiful princess of Quixote’s delusions. Quixote scours the country for a way to undo this enchantment, even though it is entirely Panza’s invention.

A Duke and Duchess hear about Quixote and become fascinated by his absurdity. They welcome him to their home and play a series of pranks on him, using their servants to make him believe he is traveling on the back of a flying horse. The Duke even sends Panza to become the governor of an island, where the pranks planned against him clash with the local people’s surprise that Panza is a fair and wise ruler. However, Panza renounces his governorship because he does not believe he is suited for the role. He returns to Quixote.

After another series of adventures, a scholar from Quixote’s village named Sanson Carrasco succeeds in defeating him in a duel. Sanson Carrasco is allied with Master Nicholas and Pero Perez in their attempts to bring Quixote home. After being defeated in the duel, Quixote believes that he cannot claim to be a knight any longer. He returns to his home and is welcomed by his niece, his housekeeper, and his friends. He initially plans to become a shepherd, but he soon falls ill. While lying on his deathbed, Quixote renounces his belief that he was ever a knight. He writes a will and leaves everything he has to his niece, his housekeeper, and Panza. With his death comes the death of knights errant. The narrator claims—following the death of Quixote—no more stories of chivalry will exist in the world.