The Spanish author who is best known to readers around the world is probably the 16th/17th century author Miguel de Cervantes. Although he wrote several works of both prose and poetry, he will always be remembered for one text: the novel Don Quixote, the first part of which was published in 1605.

It is from this novel that we have the word 'quixotic', meaning very romantic, chivalrous and tending to make extravagant gestures. The Don Quixote of the title is an old gentleman who has gone gently mad from reading romances about the knights of old. Accompanied by his squire, the faithful but sceptical Sancho Panza, he goes about the world looking for wrongs to right. In one famous scene he attacks a windmill, thinking it is a monster that is threatening people.

The second half of Don Quixote was published in 1615, just a year before Cervantes died. The book has been translated all over the world and is still read as one of the most important early examples of the novel.