The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane 1

The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane is Alain‑René Le Sage‘s masterpiece—the most celebrated picaresque novel in French literature, and a work that stands beside Don Quixote and Lazarillo de Tormes in the great tradition of rogue literature.
Gil Blas is born into poverty but blessed with keen wits, quick instincts, and an indefatigable desire to climb the social ladder. Set loose upon the highways of 17th‑century Spain, he is kidnapped by bandits, turned into a cook mid‑robbery, forced to impersonate a nobleman, made a doctor without ever having learned medicine, and eventually finds himself the private secretary to the prime minister. From the palaces of Madrid to the grimy streets of Valladolid, from the bedside of a dying miser to the gambling‑den of a corrupt judge, Gil Blas passes through a dizzying gallery of human types: greedy landlords, hypocritical monks, flirtatious actresses, grandiose poets, and crooked lawyers.
But what sets Gil Blas apart is its unsentimental clarity. Le Sage never allows Gil Blas to become a hero; he is simply a survivor. He lies when lies serve him, helps others when it costs him nothing, and steals when the provocation is great enough. Yet he never becomes a monster. Through his very flaws, he becomes astonishingly human—a character who wins not our admiration, but our recognition.
Volume I (of 3) covers Gil Blas‘s early adventures: his kidnapping by robbers, his disastrous service to the gluttonous Canon Sedillo, his apprenticeship to the quack doctor Sangrado (who prescribes nothing but hot water and bleeding), his flight into the company of strolling players, and his first taste of diplomatic scheming under the patronage of the Duke of Lerma. The volume ends with Gil Blas‘s first arrest—an encounter with the law that will not be his last.
First published in French between 1715 and 1735, Gil Blas achieved immediate success across Europe.