Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547–1616), Spanish novelist and dramatist best remembered as the author of
Don Quixote de la Mancha, a satirical romance published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, which has been widely translated and dramatized in many languages. The first English version for the stage was performed at
Dorset Garden in 1694 with music by Purcell. In 1895 Irving played Don Quixote at the
Lyceum in a version by W. G. Wills, and in 1969
The Travails of Sancho Panza by James
Saunders was the Christmas entertainment by the
National Theatre company. An American musical,
Man of La Mancha, began a good run in New York in 1965 (London, 1968), and in France one of the most successful productions by
Baty was his own dramatization of an episode from the book,
Dulcinée (1938). Cervantes himself said he wrote 30 plays, but apart from eight
comedias, of which the best,
Pedro de Urdemalas, was translated in 1964 as
Pedro the Artful Dodger, and eight
entremeses, all of which were translated in 1948 and again in 1964, the only full-length plays to have survived are
El cerco de Numancia (
The Siege of Numancia), a heroic tragedy which was revived by
Barrault in Paris in 1937, and
El trato de Argel (
Business Affairs in Algiers), based on the author's experiences there; these were probably produced between 1580 and 1590.
