The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes

may 2015 · The Floating Press

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Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes was the creative tour de force behind one of the first modern European novels, Don Quixote. Several years later, his literary experiments resulted in another innovation: the first novellas ever written in Spanish. Modeled after a format that was popular among Italian writers during the period, these stories pair Cervantes' trademark wit with important moral lessons.

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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born in Alcala de Henares, Spain, in 1547. In 1585, a few months after his marriage to Catalina de Salazar, he published his first major work as an author, the pastoral novel La Galatea which was poorly received. Cervantes became a tax collector in Granada in 1594, but was imprisoned in 1597 due to money problems with the government. Folklore maintains that while in prison, he wrote his most famous novel, Don Quixote, which was an immediate success upon publication in 1605. After several years of writing short novels and plays, Cervantes was spurred to write the sequel to Don Quixote in 1615 when an unauthorized sequel appeared to great acclaim. Though Cervantes' sequel was rushed and flawed, Don Quixote remains a powerful symbol that has endured to present times in many forms. Cervantes died on April 22, 1616, at the age of 69.