From the archive · Friday, 25 September 2026

The daily pick

One work a day, drawn from the 5,236 works in the library with a copy you can open — the same one for everybody, and a different one tomorrow.

Book1605

Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes

Generally taken as the first modern novel: a book about a man ruined by reading, which knows it is a book.

Which translation

John Ormsby's 1885 translation — scrupulous, heavily annotated, and deliberately unmodernised. Grossman's 2003 version is livelier and is not free.

Level: Advanced
Access: Free
Length: about 28 hours to read
Copy: link checked 17 Sept 2026
Filed under: Medieval & Early Modern Literature

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