Don Quixote de La Mancha. Volume I: Miguel Cervantes

Although Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was not only the brightest genius of his age and country, but a man of active life and open manners, and engaged personally in many interesting transactions of his time, there are nevertheless few distinguished men of letters who have left behind them more scanty materials of biography. His literary reputation was not of the highest order till Don Quixote made it so; and ere then he had outlived the friends and companions of his youthful adventures, and withdrawn into a life of comparative privacy and retirement. In the age immediately succeeding his own, abundant exertions were made to discover the scattered and faded traces of his career; but with what very indifferent success is well known to all acquainted with the literary history of Spain. More recently, the life of Cervantes has been elaborately written, both by the best of his commentators, Don Juan Pellicer, and by Don Vicente de los Rios, editor of the Spanish Academy's superb edition of Don Quixote; but neither of these, has, after all, been able to add much to the original naked outline which guided their researches.