Tirant Lo Blanc El Rincon Del Vago -

And to the website itself—ugly, ad-ridden, legally dubious—you were the Library of Alexandria for a generation of Spanish-speaking students.

Let’s be honest: nobody assigns Tirant lo Blanc in high school unless they hate you. It is a massive, 500-page chivalric novel written in Valencian (Catalan) from 1490. It is dense. It is weird. And it is arguably the most important book you have never read. Thanks to El Rincón del Vago , a generation of lazy (and curious) students discovered a novel so realistic, so violent, and so sexually explicit that it made Don Quixote look like a children’s fairy tale. Tirant Lo Blanc El Rincon Del Vago

It was revolutionary. But it is also long, dense, and written in a medieval Catalan that requires a glossary. It is dense

The summaries were so well-written (sometimes better than the original) that they sparked a genuine interest. You would read the summary of Tirant’s battle against the Turks, think "This is actually cool," and then go read the original chapters. Thanks to El Rincón del Vago , a

Panic sets in.