The Man Who Invented Fiction
How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
Bloomsbury USA · Print & ebook · January 10, 2017
“A heroic history of novel-reading itself.” --The Atlantic In the early seventeenth century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Follow how Cervantes’s work helped shape fiction—and the ways we see the world.
- Genres
- Iberian Lit Crit, Writers' Lives, Renaissance Literary Criticism
- Published
- Bloomsbury USA, January 10, 2017
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved.
Cervantes in AlgiersMaria Antonia Garces54% matchShares Iberian Lit Crit and Renaissance Literary Criticism
GaudiGijs van Hensbergen48% match
How Shakespeare Changed EverythingStephen Marche47% match
Imperial SpainJ. H. Elliott48% match
The Ornament of the WorldMaria Rosa Menocal, María Rosa Menocal50% match
Victorian Internet,theTom Standage48% match
Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra70% match
For younger readers: Kurt Vonnegut, I, Juan De Pareja, Leonardo Da Vinci
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
“A heroic history of novel-reading itself.” --The Atlantic In the early seventeenth century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a book. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from reading too many books of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures.
Continue reading
That book,Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history. Cervantes did more than just publish a bestseller, though. He invented a way of writing. This book is about how Cervantes came to create what we now call fiction, and how fiction changed the world. The Man Who Invented Fiction explores Cervantes's life and the world he lived in, showing how his influences converged in his work, and how his work--especiallyDon Quixote--radically changed the nature of literature and created a new way of viewing the world. Finally, it explains how that worldview went on to infiltrate art, politics, and science, and how the world today would be unimaginable without it. William Egginton has brought thrilling new meaning to an immortal novel.
Fiction’s New World
Follow how Cervantes’s work helped shape fiction—and the ways we see the world.
Come here for
- Cervantes’s life alongside the making of Don Quixote
- A literary history that reaches into art, politics, and science
Expect
- Literary history with a wide-ranging view of fiction’s influence
- A sustained look at Cervantes and the world around his work
Where it sits
| Iberian Lit Crit | 61% |
|---|---|
| Writers' Lives | 46% |
| Renaissance Literary Criticism | 27% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Writers' Lives
- Authors
- William Egginton
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury USA
- Published
- January 10, 2017
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Writers' Lives