The film without the cuts. And the book itself.
A minor country gentleman reads so many books of chivalry that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight errant - and the world has never been the same since.
Don Quixote / Alonso Quixano
An aging gentleman in battered armor rides out of ordinary La Mancha because books have made the world too small.
Don Quixote’s unnamed village in La Mancha
A dry, nameless Castilian village that somehow produces the grandest delusion in literature.
Before madness and glory, a modest gentleman quietly spends himself into delusion.
Read →A Gentleman on Thin Means
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun.
We meet a man defined entirely by his budget. The narrator won't even bother to name his village, and then he counts out exactly what this gentleman eats: more cheap beef than good mutton, plain lentils and leftovers, a little treat on Sundays, all of it eating up most of what he has. This is not a lord, he is a country gentleman scraping to keep up appearances, saving his one good outfit for holidays and making do with rough cloth the rest of the week. Before he ever dreams of knighthood, we know a life this thin leaves room for wanting something more.
The Birth of Don Quixote
A minor country gentleman reads so many books of chivalry that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight errant - and the world has never been the same since.
Books of chivalry
The knightly romances that so fill a quiet gentleman's head that he rides out to live them.
Sancho Panza
A practical squire on a patient ass follows madness long enough to become changed by it.
Don Quixote
The cast, locations, objects of note, core concepts, and selected passages in the Author’s Pen - at your own pace.
The Don Quixote World, as it plays on your phone
- Meet the people. 50 characters, each with a portrait, who they are and what they want.
- Walk the places. 30 places, each pictured, and what happens there.
- Follow the plot. The turns of the story, in order, so you always know where you are.
- Taste the original. 53 key passages in Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s own words, each with a short reading of what it is doing.
- The complete book. Every word, in a reader made for your phone. From any passage, one tap opens the book at that very page.
Step inside Don Quixote
Free, in your inbox in about a minute: the World and the complete book, on your phone.