Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (trans. The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda) (Biblioteca Nacional de España) [2]

Cervantes carried on writing until the very end of his days, putting his life on paper. It is moving to think that, even with “one foot in the grave”, he was still promising new works, new products of his wit. To write is to be alive, and life only seemed meaningful for Cervantes if he threw himself into writing, into the real lives of these fictional characters he created throughout his lifetime. Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (trans. The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda) was not published until a year after his death.
This was the last of the works Miguel de Cervantes wrote and it came on sale at the end of 1616, according to the appraisal: “In Madrid, on the twenty-third day of the year one thousand six hundred and sixteen.” It is touching how the “complete cripple” and “delight of the muses”, as he describes himself in the prologue, continues to promise the Count of Lemos new works: “There are still some fragments and traces in my mind of the ‘Weeks in a Garden’ and the famous “Bernardo’, and if happily by good luck – though it wouldn’t be luck now but rather a miracle – Heaven should give me life, you will see them, and along with them the conclusion of the Galatea, of which I know Your Excellency is fond.”

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