The novel "Don Quixote" is over four hundred years old (first appearing in 1605, fifteen years prior to the Mayflower reaching the shores of Massachusetts), yet it is still alive and "fresh" today.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky called Don Quixote "the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking." Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens admitted that his most-revered work, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was based on -- or at least heavily influenced by -- this satirical picaresque novel by Cervantes. Ernest Hemingway opined that American literature began with "Huck Finn"; thus, we can trace a literary lineage flowing from Cervantes to Twain to Hemingway and onwards.
Considering the above, it is fitting that a native English speaker wanting to learn Spanish (beyond the basic phrases revolving around bathrooms and beer, as well as conversational necessities such as "How are you?", "What is your name?" etc.) would want to read Don Quixote in its original language; and, of course, a native Spanish speaker wanting to learn English could use this volume to the same end. This edition allows for that, with alternating paragraphs in the original Spanish and the translation into English.
Some quotes about and from "Don Quixote" follow:
"I had rather you read fifty "Jumping Frogs" than one Don Quixote. Don Quixote is one of the most exquisite books that was ever written, and to lose it from the world's literature would be as the wresting of a constellation from the symmetry and perfection of the firmament--but neither it nor Shakespeare are proper books for virgins to read until some hand has culled them of their grossness." - Mark Twain, in a letter to his fiancé, Olivia Langdon.
“Thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed, and it is on the high-road to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times, if heaven does not put a stop to it ... for though self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me.” (Cervantes probably thought this an exaggeration that he put in his protagonist's mouth, but it wasn't - according to wikipedia, "It is common knowledge that Don Quixote has sold over 500 million copies")
“I want you to see me naked and performing one or two dozen mad acts, which will take me less than half an hour, because if you have seen them with your own eyes, you can safely swear to any others you might wish to add.” - Don Quixote to Sancho Panza
“Ay,” said Sancho; “it must be that some of your worship's shrewdness sticks to me; land that, of itself, is barren and dry, will come to yield good fruit if you dung it and till it; what I mean is that your worship's conversation has been the dung that has fallen on the barren soil of my dry wit, and the time I have been in your service and society has been the tillage;” - Sancho Panza to Don Quixote
