Miguel de Cervantes
(1547 - 1616)
En route from Italy to Spain in 1575, the poet and playwright Miguel de Cervantes was captured by Barbary pirates, enslaved in Algeria, and freed five years later when his family paid his ransom. In 1604 Cervantes sold the rights to Part I of his novel Don Quixote, and though it became an international success, he received no royalties. He died in Madrid at the age of sixty-eight in 1616.