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Very few Americans have read Don Quixote, a novel written in Spanish in the 1500s. Yet, many Americans know some of the story of the self-deluded so-called knight, Don Quixote, through the ever-popular musical The Man of La Mancha. The Impossible Dream is probably the most famous song from that show and has had a wide popularity.
An easy introduction to many classic books is through editions that have been revised or re-written for younger folks. After reading and enjoying these versions, as the student gets older he or she can read the real thing more easily, already having a feel for the overall plot and narrative flow. The Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel Cervantes and Leighton Barret is just such a re-telling, for younger readers (middle school), of this classic Spanish novel. It was one of the earliest true novels, along with Pilgrim’s Progress in English. Miguel Cervantes (1547 to 1616) is the original author who published his book in 1605 (Part I) and 1615 (Part II).
Leighton Barret published this junior version in 1939. Barret manages to convey the satirical humor of the original through his or her sprightly writing (I could not find any information on this author and the name “Leighton” can be a man or woman’s name). I’ll give an example of this. The title of the first chapter is “Don Quixote Reads Himself Silly”. This is a wonderful restatement of why Don Quixote, which is his made-up knightly name, starts out on his adventures and is a tribute to the imagination and writing skill of Leighton Barret, who is the author of this version of this classic book. There has been a great impact and influence of Don Quixote on Western culture for the last 400 years. It is interesting to note that Part I of Don Quixote was published three years before the settlement at Jamestown was begun! As an example of this impact and influence, the expression “a quixotic hope” means a hoped-for event that probably will never take place – an impossible dream. “Quixotic” is a word taken directly from this classic novel. This junior version is a wonderful introduction to this great novel and can form part of a classical curriculum in the middle school years.