Meeting at the usual place, The Shakespeare Hotel (upstairs), 200 Devonshire Street, Surry Hills, at 7.00pm on Thursday February 5, 2026, we will be discussing *Don Quixote* by Miguel de Cervantes.

This is a personal favourite of mine. Written in two volumes (1605 and 1615) it has been described as the first European novel. It tells of the comedic adventures of Don Quioxte, who reads all day and all night about chivalrous knights-errant to such an extent that he goes quite mad.

'“In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever a madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights‑errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame.'

My personal recommendation is for the John Ormsby translation. This is available for free on guthenberg. There is an EXCELLENT audio recording of this edition on Audible.

However, the Edith Grossman translation is fine. It is the one usually found in shops and libraries. I do not know of an audio version.

I suggest skipping the poetry at the beginning and go straight to the opening sentence: 'In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind...'

At over 900 pages, it is quite long. For those short on time, I suggest reading the first 14 chapters and then chapter 60 to the end (totaling about 200 pages), That will give the opening of the novel, a series of 'adventures' and then the climax. Pages 100 to 800 (roughly) consist of a series of 'adventures.' All great fun, but I understand people may have limited time.

I will be doing a short video on reading the book. Check out the link in the discussion below.

Dale

Western Classics Book Club Sydney

Hobbies & Passions

Book Club

Reading

Novel Reading

Books and Drinks

New In Town

Fiction

Intellectual Discussions

Literature

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

The Shakespeare Hotel

Share

Western Classics Book Club Sydney

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Western Classics Book Club Sydney

Details

Members are also interested in