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The Man Who Invented Fiction
How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
The Man Who Invented Fiction
How Cervantes Ushered in the Modern World
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Description
Bloomsbury presents The Man Who Invented Fiction by William Egginton, read by Matt Fletcher-Macdonald.
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. 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--especially Don 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 unthinkable without it.
Four hundred years after Cervantes's death, William Egginton has brought thrilling new meaning to an immortal novel.
Product details
| Published | 27 Aug 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Audiobook |
| Duration | 7 hours and 21 minutes |
| ISBN | 9781037217845 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
About the contributors
Reviews
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A heroic history of novel-reading itself.
The Atlantic
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The tale of Cervantes himself is told with impressive acuity, thoroughness and exactitude by Egginton in his uncommonly full and readable book about genius.
Buffalo News, Editor's Choice
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A revered classic here becomes strikingly new again.
Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
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Egginton shines in his literary analysis, teasing out Cervantes's genius in accessible prose and showing how Don Quixote paved the way for modern fiction by exploring its characters' inner lives . . . An entertaining and thought-provoking reading of Cervantes's masterpiece.
Publishers Weekly
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A celebration of a beloved novel and its innovative author . . . Egginton's well-informed history of 16th-century Spanish life, politics, and culture makes for an engrossing read.
Kirkus Reviews
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William Egginton has written an engaging and enlightening book on the pivotal role of Miguel de Cervantes in the development of western literature. He amply justifies the truth of his wonderfully provocative title.
Edith Grossman, renowned translator of, among other Spanish language masterpieces, DON QUIXOTE
























