Don Quixote 

Gustave Doré created this pen and ink illustration of Don Quixote sometime in the mid-19th century. Here we see the deluded knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, caught amidst a thundering herd of bulls, their horses rearing in panic. Doré's images, originally designed to illustrate a new edition of Cervantes' novel, became hugely popular, and helped to cement our modern visual understanding of the story. This was a period when the illustrated book was an increasingly important cultural object. Rapid advances in print technology meant that images could be reproduced and disseminated more widely than ever before. Doré was a master of the technique, and the success of his "Don Quixote" speaks to the growing importance of visual media in shaping public perceptions of literature. Historians draw on a range of resources – from print archives to social histories – to understand the cultural work that these images performed.