Don Quixote

1605 for Part I, 1615 for Part II, Signet Classic edition 1964
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, translated by Walter Sarkie
Don Quixote of La Mancha
Original price not shown, bought used for unknown
Pretty bad condition, not surprising given the age of this paperback and my frequent rereads (at least every 5 years)
B+

Still funny and fresh after four centuries, this meandering set of adventures takes two memorable main characters and a lot of good supporting characters around late Renaissance Spain.  Both a satire of and a tribute to chivalry, it manages to make even book-burning entertaining.  I could've done with less about whipping, although as it turns out, the trees suffer more than the people.  The attitudes to the Turks, Moriscos, and Sancho Panza's imaginary black subjects are regrettable but could be worse given the time.  A pleasant surprise are the number of clever women, notably Dorotea.  This translation is smooth and accessible, although when one phrase was footnoted as equivalent to "our 'wigs on the green,'" I had to shrug.  (It means roughly "a fight's breaking out.")

Due to the difference in calendars in England and the Continent at that time, Cervantes and Shakespeare both died on April 23, 1616.  But Cervantes was still at the top of his game a year before he went, while Shakespeare had peaked back in the 1590s.