The adventures of Don Quixote abridged from the original edition by W.M. Thackeray
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| The adventures of Don Quixote |
The plot revolves around the adventures of a noble (hidalgo) from La Mancha named Alonso Quixano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant (caballero andante) to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Cervantes, Don Quixote. "In a certain corner of la Mancha, the name of which I do not choose to remember, there lately lived one of that country gentleman, who adorn their halls with rusty lace and worm-eaten target and ride forth on the skeleton of a horse, to the course with a sort of a starved greyhound.
Excerpt:
In the village of La Mancha, on the borders of Arragon and Castile, there lived an elderly gentleman of small means who was known by the name of Don Quixada, which means lantern-jawed. This same Don Quixada, being unmarried and without occupation, passed most of his time in reading books of knight-errantry until his brain became so filled with stories of adventure that he determined at last to imitate the knights of old, and to start forth. armed and on horseback, in search of wrongs to right and enemies to overcome.
So filled was his mind with these romantic ideas that he completely overlooked the fact that the times have changed, no need for knight-errantry any longer existed, and that to return to the manners and customs of a bygone age was but absurdity and foolishness.
With all possible eagerness he made ready for the start, and first, he turned out his grandfather's suit of armour which was falling to pieces from disuse and prepared it for his own wear. The armour itself he scoured from the rust with which it was thickly encrusted, and finding the helmet incomplete, he made a vizor of pasteboard lined with thin plates of iron, which, with much ingenuity, he fastened to it.
Contents:
I. Dubbed a Knight,
II. The Ten Giants,
III. Tilting at Windmills,
IV. The Rescue of a Princess
V. Repose
VI. Misadventure,
VII. Two Armies of Heroe
VIII. The Golden Helmet of Mambrino,
IX. Freed Slaves
X. The Lady Dulcinea,
XI. Strolling Players,
XII. The Knight of the Wood
XIII. The Knight of the Lion,
XIV. The Enchanted Boat,
XV. The Duchess
XVI. Sancho's Confessions
XVII. Sancho in Judgment,
XVIII. Sancho's Banquet,
XIX. The Resignation of Sancho,
XX. Sancho's Fall,
XXI. The Knight Unhorsed,
XXII. Rest at Last,
XXII. Rest at Last,
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