Folio Presents: Novel Study – Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum invites you to join our upcoming novel study of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, a foundational work of Western literature. With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been widely recognized as the first modern novel and has been labelled the best novel of all time. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1616, it is also one of the most translated books in the world.

Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain in this brilliant example of picaresque satire. You haven’t experienced Don Quixote in English until you’ve read this masterful translation. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Using the Shared Inquiry technique, Folio librarian Lillian Dabney will guide us through a deep reading of Cervantes’ remarkable novel over the course of 8 weeks. This is a remote program, and is held online via Zoom.

A limited number of Pay What You Want Tickets is available for this program, please contact Tess Selim to request a code. For questions about the reading, please contact Lillian Dabney. 

• Sep 10: pp. 1-115

• Sep 24: pp. 117-238

• Oct 1: pp, 238-352

• Oct 8: pp. 352-468

• Oct 15: pp.468-582

• Oct 22: pp.582-702

• Oct 29: pp. 702-823

• Nov 5: pp. 823-940

Miguel de Cervantes was born on September 29, 1547, in Alcala de Henares, Spain. At twenty-three he enlisted in the Spanish militia and in 1571 fought against the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto, where a gunshot wound permanently crippled his left hand. He spent four more years at sea and then another five as a slave after being captured by Barbary pirates. Ransomed by his family, he returned to Madrid but his disability hampered him; it was in debtor’s prison that he began to write Don Quixote. Cervantes wrote many other works, including poems and plays, but he remains best known as the author of Don Quixote. He died on April 23, 1616.

Edith Grossman is the award-winning translator of major works by many of Latin America’s most important writers. Born in Philadelphia, she attended the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley before receiving her PhD from New York University. She lives in New York City.

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