Best known today as the author of "Don Quixote" one of the most beloved and widely read novels in the Western tradition Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) was a poet and a playwright as well. After some early successes on the Madrid stage in the 1580s, his theatrical career was interrupted by other literary efforts. Yet, eager to prove himself as a playwright, shortly before his death he published a collection of his later plays before they were ever performed.

With their depiction of captives in North Africa and at the Ottoman court, two of these, "The Bagnios of Algiers" and "The...

With these words, Walter Starkie launches the introduction to his highly esteemed translation and abridgment of Cervantes s great classic a book that has enchanted generations of readers throughout the world.

Brimming with humor, rich in idealism and earthy common sense, vivid in its characterizations of men and...