Volume 19 of the collected works: Vladimir Nabokov takes a contrarian approach to Cervantes and uncovers treasures! Alongside his lectures on Western European and Russian literature, the one on Cervantes' "Don Quixote" holds a special place. He delivered it only once, in 1952 as a guest lecturer at Harvard University, and he knew he would be presenting his audience with a heretical view of this world classic. For he did not like the novel. Not only did its often noted narrative sloppiness bother him, but he was particularly repulsed by the brutality with which the fellow humans treated the albeit mad, but noble and brave pseudo-knight, to the delight of the reader and perhaps even the author. Yet, amidst all the roughness, Nabokov discovered not only a wealth of artistically outstanding passages but also that the mistreated hero had long since transcended the dubious.