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THREE hundred years ago this month the First Part of El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha was published in Madrid, and the world was made the richer by a book which will last until “the silver chord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken”; until the earth relapses into its original silence and language is no more spoken or read. It is somewhat late to weave new laurels for the brow of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra—the last word on Don Quixote has been spoken. The great contemporary of Shakespeare has long since come into his own among the world’s heroes; no country has forborne to do him honour; no literature is complete that does not contain a translation of his book.

But while the career of Cervantes forms as eventful and varied a history as that of the Knight-errant of La Mancha himself—Don Quixote might even be read as the sequel of its author’s life—the number of biographies of the Spanish writer in the English tongue is curiously limited. It is ten years since Mr. Henry Edward Watts—whose recent demise will be regretted by all Cervantists in this country—issued his new and revised edition of the Life and Works of Cervantes, and the scholarly and deeply-interesting Life by Mr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Cervantes’ most brilliant and discriminating biographer, is already a rare and almost unobtainable work.

Several hundred works of biography, commentary, and criticism of Cervantes’ life and writings have been published in various languages, yet I am not without hope that this modest contribution may find an unoccupied niche in the broad gallery of Cervantist literature. I have no new data to offer, but I have put forward my conclusions, where they traverse the judgment of other authors, with all reserve; and on points of fact I have accepted the verdict of the majority of my authorities. Wherever I have quoted, and I have had much resource to Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly and others, I have acknowledged my indebtedness; and I have endeavoured to keep always in view my object to present a concise, accurate, and readable life of Cervantes.

I confess that I have less diffidence in submitting for the approval of my readers the illustrations which grace this little book. The reproductions of the title pages of various of Cervantes’ books, and the original illustrations to Don Quixote, will recommend themselves to lovers of letters and of Cervantes; and, in default of an authentic likeness of our author, I offer a choice of all the best-known attempts to repair the omission.

A. F. C.

“Royston,” Hampstead, N.W.,

January, 1905.