Cerv Antes
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, dramatist and novelist, was born in 1547, the son of a Spanish druggist and surgeon. He died in Madrid in 1616, ten days before Shakespeare's death.
As a youth Cervantes went to Italy, where he served as a private in the army. In a naval battle off Greece he was thrice wounded, his right hand being permanently maimed. While returning to Spain he was captured by pirates and taken to Algiers, where he was held as a slave for five years. After his ransom he wrote many plays. They brought him more fame than fortune, and he added to his responsibilities by wedding, at the age of thirty-seven, a girl of nineteen. It was evidently a marriage of love, as her dowry consisted only of "five vines, an orchard, some household furniture, four beehives, forty-five hens and chickens, one cock, and a crucible." As he could not live by his pen, Cervantes secured a minor governmental position; but he was in constant difficulties because of pressing debts and his unbusiness-like habits. He was thrown into prison for debt; released, he sank into abject poverty.
Part of "Don Quixote" was probably written in jail. This novel, a magic mirror that reflects nobles and kitchen wenches, barbers and ladies of high degree, all the varied life of a brilliant period, is considered by many to be the world's greatest humorous masterpiece. The wonder of it is that it was written by a man nearing his sixtieth year, who had all his life been poor, who had known little except misfortune. "Children turn its pages, young people read it, grown men understand it, old folks praise it."