Don Quixote was extremely popular and let to the publication of an unauthorized continuation of it by an unknown writer who went by the name of Alonso de Avellaneda. Cervantes went on to produce his own continuation of Don Quixote which was published in 1615. Don Quixote is understood to be a satire of the romance of chivalry and a challenge to the form of literature that had been the public’s favourite for over a century.

Don Quixote is often cited as the first classic novel and it has continued to serve as the prototype of the comic novel. Including satire, the humorous situations in the novel are mostly burlesque. The Encyclopedia Britannica listed Don Quixote in its ‘Great Books of the Western World’, no small compliment indeed! It is in Don Quixote that Cervantes coined the popular phrase “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” which remains heavily used in the shortened form of “the proof is in the pudding”. Cervantes also coined “who walks much and reads much, knows much and sees much”. After buying yourself a e27 bulb 15, get yourself a copy of Don Quixote!