THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the son of a poor Spanish doctor, was almost certainly born in 1547. He served in Italy when he was twenty-one, and as a regular soldier he took part in the naval battle of Lepanto and other engagements, until he was captured by pirates while returning to Spain in 1575 and taken to be the slave of a renegade Greek in Algiers; he attempted unsuccessfully to escape three times, and was finally ransomed in 1580. For the rest of his life he was preoccupied with the difficulties of making a living, and spent several periods in prison. He had already written some plays and a pastoral novel. La Galatea,when in 1592 he offered to write six plays at fifty ducats apiece. He had no success until 1605, when the publication of the first part of Don Quixote brought him immediate popularity. The ExemplaryStories were published as a collection in 1613, and in 1615 appeared the promised continuation of DonQuixote. Cervantes died in 1616.

 

Samuel Putnam was educated at the University of Chicago and the Sorbonne in Paris. His books include ParisWas Our Mistress: Memoirsof a Lost and FoundGeneration.

 

Each volume in The Viking Portable Library either presents a representative selection from the works of a single outstanding writer or offers a comprehensive anthology on a special subject. Averaging 700 pages in length and designed for compactness and readability, these books fill a need not met by other compilations. All are edited by distinguished authorities, who have written introductory essays and included much other helpful material.