The publication reproduces the translation of the full text of Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, made by St. Petersburg writers and scientists during the heyday of Russian translation art at the turn of the 20-30s of the XX century. for the publishing house "Academia." The text is carefully verified and provided with comments and documents testifying to the perception of the novel in the West and in Russia, in particular Pushkin, Zhukovsky and especially enthusiastically - Turgenev and Dostoevsky. For the first time translated into Russian and "false" "Don Quixote" - a fake, the author of which is a contemporary of Cervantes, a certain Avellaneda. Comparing both works, the reader cannot but see the abyss separating the ingenious and mediocre interpretations of the same plot, the same characters. The publication is equipped with an article by academician N.I. Balashov "Don Quixote Cervantes - the great book of mankind."