Don Quixote Illustrated edition by Miguel de Cervantes Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Don Quixote Illustrated edition by Miguel de Cervantes Literature Fiction eBooks 
A timeless tale of comedy and misplaced chivalry, Cervantes' classic Don Quixote tells the story of a country gentleman so brainwashed by tales of knighthood and bravery that he decides to set out on a quest of his own—one that proves to be quite foolish in a world without castles and kings. Along with his squire Sancho Panza, he embarks on a journey that is often considered one of the greatest literary works of all time.
Included in Maplewood Edition of Don Quixote are
• The full, unabridged text of Cervantes's Don Quixote, elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your device.
• Classic illustrations throughout the text by Gustave Dore.
• Links to free, full-length audio recordings of this and other classic works.
• An active Table of Contents accessible from the "go to" feature.
• Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with 's Text-to-Speech features.
• A low, can't-say-no price!
Exclusive Fan Resources
Special features are also include for any Cervantes enthusiast, including
• A list of films and dramatic works, both directly and indirectly inspired by Cervantes' masterpiece.
• Links to free, full-length audio recordings of this and other classic works.
Prepare yourself for one of the greats of Western literature Don Quixote.
Don Quixote Illustrated edition by Miguel de Cervantes Literature Fiction eBooks
Well, it's Don Quixote, which is a fabulous book. I'm not reviewing Don Quixote though, I'm reviewing this particular edition.John Ormsby's translation is very well-respected, and I have no complaints with it at all. I probably would have given this edition 5 stars, were it not for one grievous flaw…
The primary reason that I selected this particular edition over any other was that it is "ILLUSTRATED" — and not just by anyone, but by the legendary Gustave Doré. In fact, the publisher's description boasts that it contains some 360 such illustrations, and I was truly looking forward to enjoying a fine showcase of Doré's work alongside this classic text.
Unfortunately, the quality of the reproductions is abysmal. The one and only image that you can see in the "Look Inside!" preview is literally the largest one in the whole book. Almost every other one of those ~360 illustrations has been printed much too small, too dark, and with nowhere near enough resolution to capture the fine details. This is particularly true of the wood engravings, which tend to be dark to begin with, but it's also true of the pencil sketches.
The simple fact is that every one of the images *should* have been printed as large as a full page would allow, but they have instead been squeezed into tiny little boxes, and the result is so unsatisfying and ugly that they may as well not be there.
I do realize that Don Quixote is very long (especially since this is the full, unabridged text), and even with the illustrations shrunk down, the book runs 780 pages. So I also understand that devoting a full page's width to each illustration would have made it even longer.
But #1 -- so what? So go ahead and make it longer! And #2 - what is the point of including illustrations at all, if they are printed too small to appreciate them? Why bother going to the trouble of securing the work of a legendary illustrator like Gustave Doré, if you're not going to give his work the kind of spotlight it deserves?
For this reason alone, I can only give this edition 3 stars out of 5.
If the publisher had printed every single one of the Doré illustrations at full page width, so one could properly see and appreciate them, I would have given this edition 5 stars -- and even if that had made the book 1100-1200 pages long, and 50% more expensive, I would happily have paid it.
Product details
|
Tags : Don Quixote: (Illustrated) - Kindle edition by Miguel de Cervantes. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Don Quixote: (Illustrated).,ebook,Miguel de Cervantes,Don Quixote: (Illustrated),Maplewood Books,FICTION Hispanic & Latino,FICTION Classics
People also read other books :
- Storage Space A Collection of Contemporary Poetry Darren A Stein 9781436383776 Books
- TRADE WORLD SAGA Ken Pence Books
- Mars The Next Frontier An Anthology of Space Poetry eBook Patricia Ferguson
- After the Storm Interracial Erotic Romance edition by Jewelle Moore Literature Fiction eBooks
- Roughing the Passer Seattle Lumberjacks Book 6 edition by Jami Davenport Literature Fiction eBooks
Don Quixote Illustrated edition by Miguel de Cervantes Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
In spite of seeing--as a young lad--Richard Kiley starring in a London production of Man of La Mancha in 1969--to this day, one of my favorite musicals--I had no inclination to read the source material, Don Quixote; that is, not until a new friend of mine recommended it in the most glowing terms. Normally not one to be daunted by the length of a book, I do realize now as I get older that I fall asleep very quickly into any reading-in-bed effort. So I knew going in this would take me quite a while from start to finish. Months later (lol) I can tell you that I have enjoyed the ride enormously. Considering the book is over 400 years old, it is astonishing just how contemporary the tone of the book comes forth--in spite of the beautiful, flowery language. Also, the wit and charm here is on a level equal to or surpassing Dickens. One of the greatest books I have ever read.
I am in the process of reading through many literary classic I never read in high school or college, and this is my current read. great story line and just enough comedy to keep the chivalry language tolerable. I'm on the second part of the book, and love it so far.
Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho’s services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle. On his horse, Rocinante, a barn nag well past his prime, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure. He gives up food, shelter, and comfort, all in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso, whom he envisions as a princess.
On his second expedition, Don Quixote becomes more of a bandit than a savior, stealing from and hurting baffled and justifiably angry citizens while acting out against what he perceives as threats to his knighthood or to the world. Don Quixote abandons a boy, leaving him in the hands of an evil farmer simply because the farmer swears an oath that he will not harm the boy. He steals a barber’s basin that he believes to be the mythic Mambrino’s helmet, and he becomes convinced of the healing powers of the Balsam of Fierbras, an elixir that makes him so ill that, by comparison, he later feels healed. Sancho stands by Don Quixote, often bearing the brunt of the punishments that arise from Don Quixote’s behavior.
The story of Don Quixote’s deeds includes the stories of those he meets on his journey. Don Quixote witnesses the funeral of a student who dies as a result of his love for a disdainful lady turned shepherdess. He frees a wicked and devious galley slave, Gines de Pasamonte, and unwittingly reunites two bereaved couples, Cardenio and Lucinda, and Ferdinand and Dorothea. Torn apart by Ferdinand’s treachery, the four lovers finally come together at an inn where Don Quixote sleeps, dreaming that he is battling a giant.
Along the way, the simple Sancho plays the straight man to Don Quixote, trying his best to correct his master’s outlandish fantasies. Two of Don Quixote’s friends, the priest and the barber, come to drag him home. Believing that he is under the force of an enchantment, he accompanies them, thus ending his second expedition and the First Part of the novel.
The Second Part of the novel begins with a passionate invective against a phony sequel of Don Quixote that was published in the interim between Cervantes’s two parts. Everywhere Don Quixote goes, his reputation—gleaned by others from both the real and the false versions of the story—precedes him.
As the two embark on their journey, Sancho lies to Don Quixote, telling him that an evil enchanter has transformed Dulcinea into a peasant girl. Undoing this enchantment, in which even Sancho comes to believe, becomes Don Quixote’s chief goal.
Don Quixote meets a Duke and Duchess who conspire to play tricks on him. They make a servant dress up as Merlin, for example, and tell Don Quixote that Dulcinea’s enchantment—which they know to be a hoax—can be undone only if Sancho whips himself 3,300 times on his naked backside. Under the watch of the Duke and Duchess, Don Quixote and Sancho undertake several adventures. They set out on a flying wooden horse, hoping to slay a giant who has turned a princess and her lover into metal figurines and bearded the princess’s female servants.
During his stay with the Duke, Sancho becomes governor of a fictitious isle. He rules for ten days until he is wounded in an onslaught the Duke and Duchess sponsor for their entertainment. Sancho reasons that it is better to be a happy laborer than a miserable governor.
A young maid at the Duchess’s home falls in love with Don Quixote, but he remains a staunch worshipper of Dulcinea. Their never-consummated affair amuses the court to no end. Finally, Don Quixote sets out again on his journey, but his demise comes quickly. Shortly after his arrival in Barcelona, the Knight of the White Moon—actually an old friend in disguise—vanquishes him.
Cervantes relates the story of Don Quixote as a history, which he claims he has translated from a manuscript written by a Moor named Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cervantes becomes a party to his own fiction, even allowing Sancho and Don Quixote to modify their own histories and comment negatively upon the false history published in their names.
In the end, the beaten and battered Don Quixote forswears all the chivalric truths he followed so fervently and dies from a fever. With his death, knights-errant become extinct. Benengeli returns at the end of the novel to tell us that illustrating the demise of chivalry was his main purpose in writing the history of Don Quixote. Rather sad.
I had never read the original before, so my expectations were based primarily on the musical, which is a whole different thing. Cervantes invented the modern novel, including both the speculative novel, and realism, which must be where magical realism comes from originally. The novel itself is a study in contradictions. The fictional author is a Morisco, not an Old (Spanish) Christian. The hero never gets the girl. The stated purpose of the author is to destroy tales of chivalry forever, though it reads quite a bit like a romance. And the author kills his hero, in order to prevent the need for writing more sequels, 300 years before Conan Doyle.
Well, it's Don Quixote, which is a fabulous book. I'm not reviewing Don Quixote though, I'm reviewing this particular edition.
John Ormsby's translation is very well-respected, and I have no complaints with it at all. I probably would have given this edition 5 stars, were it not for one grievous flaw…
The primary reason that I selected this particular edition over any other was that it is "ILLUSTRATED" — and not just by anyone, but by the legendary Gustave Doré. In fact, the publisher's description boasts that it contains some 360 such illustrations, and I was truly looking forward to enjoying a fine showcase of Doré's work alongside this classic text.
Unfortunately, the quality of the reproductions is abysmal. The one and only image that you can see in the "Look Inside!" preview is literally the largest one in the whole book. Almost every other one of those ~360 illustrations has been printed much too small, too dark, and with nowhere near enough resolution to capture the fine details. This is particularly true of the wood engravings, which tend to be dark to begin with, but it's also true of the pencil sketches.
The simple fact is that every one of the images *should* have been printed as large as a full page would allow, but they have instead been squeezed into tiny little boxes, and the result is so unsatisfying and ugly that they may as well not be there.
I do realize that Don Quixote is very long (especially since this is the full, unabridged text), and even with the illustrations shrunk down, the book runs 780 pages. So I also understand that devoting a full page's width to each illustration would have made it even longer.
But #1 -- so what? So go ahead and make it longer! And #2 - what is the point of including illustrations at all, if they are printed too small to appreciate them? Why bother going to the trouble of securing the work of a legendary illustrator like Gustave Doré, if you're not going to give his work the kind of spotlight it deserves?
For this reason alone, I can only give this edition 3 stars out of 5.
If the publisher had printed every single one of the Doré illustrations at full page width, so one could properly see and appreciate them, I would have given this edition 5 stars -- and even if that had made the book 1100-1200 pages long, and 50% more expensive, I would happily have paid it.
0 Response to "≫ Descargar Gratis Don Quixote Illustrated edition by Miguel de Cervantes Literature Fiction eBooks"
Post a Comment