Perhaps the greatest--and certainly the most famous--novel ever written in Spanish, Don Quijote de la Mancha is the classic picaresque tale of a knight-errant living in a world which has no use for him. Written as a history, it gives an account of the life of Don Quijote, a deluded 17th-century Spaniard who believes himself to be a medieval knight and attempts to win renown through acts of chivalry that are invariably disastrous or absurd. One of the earliest examples of the novel form, it remains to this day among the most influential and best-loved works of fiction in any language.