17th-century Spanish novels

Don Quixote, the full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. Considered a founding work of Western literature, it is often said to be the first modern novel. The novel has been labelled by many well-known authors as the "best book of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature". Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time.

El Criticón is a Spanish novel by Baltasar Gracián. It was published in three parts in the years 1651, 1653 and 1657. It is considered his greatest work and one of the most influential works in Spanish literature, along with Don Quixote and La Celestina. El Criticón collects and expands his previous works.

La inocencia castigada (English: Innocence Punished) is a Spanish language novel by María de Zayas y Sotomayor, from the collection Desengaños amorosos (English: Amorous Disenchantments). It was published during Spain's Golden Age, and is a tragedy about a misunderstanding which leads to the kidnapping and torture of an innocent woman.

Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda ("The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda") is a romance or Byzantine novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, his last work and one that stands in opposition to the more famous novel Don Quixote by its embrace of the fantastic rather than the commonplace. While Cervantes is known primarily for Don Quixote, widely regarded as one of the foremost classic novels of all time, he himself believed the Persiles, as it is commonly called, to be his crowning achievement. He completed it only three days before his death, and it was posthumously published in 1617.

La vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, hombre de buen humor, Life and facts of Estebanillo González, man of good humour, (Antwerp, 1646, and Madrid, 1652) is a Spanish picaresque novel, written as a genuine autobiography of a rogue (well documented in other sources), but for some scholars, it is a work of fiction. Against the background of the Thirty Years War, the main character writes about his life being a servant of distinguished masters, in a personal narrative all Europe around as a soldier, messenger, etc., witnessing important historic events, such as the Huguenot rebellions while placed in France as the servant to an undercover spy. He serves as part of the company under the command of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain ravaging the French provinces of Champagne, Burgundy and Picardy, and even threatening Paris in 1636. It is one of the last great achievements of Spanish Baroque literature during the seventeenth century.

Guzmán de Alfarache is a picaresque novel written by Mateo Alemán and published in two parts: the first in Madrid in 1599 with the title Primera parte de Guzmán de Alfarache, and the second in 1604, titled Segunda parte de la vida de Guzmán de Alfarache, atalaya de la vida humana.

El Buscón (full title Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños (literally: History of the life of the Swindler, called Don Pablos, model for hobos and mirror of misers); translated as Paul the Sharper or The Scavenger and The Swindler) is a picaresque novel by Francisco de Quevedo. It was written around 1604 (the exact date of completion is not known) and published in 1626 by a press in Zaragoza (without Quevedo's permission), though it had circulated in manuscript form previous to that.