Don Quixote, is a vel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish literary can. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canical vels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the best literary work ever written.