Not to be confused with the arXiv.

For help citing the Internet Archive in English Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine.

Coordinates: 37°46′56.3″N 122°28′17.65″W / 37.782306°N 122.4715694°W / 37.782306; -122.4715694

Internet Archive

Internet Archive logo.
Type	Digital library
Founded	1996 (1996)
Key people	Brewster Kahle (Chairman)
Website	www.archive.org
Alexa rank	225 (June 2012[update])[1]
Available in	English

Internet Archive headquarters were in the Presidio, a former US military base in San Francisco, from 1996 to 2009.

As of November 2009, new Internet Archive headquarters at 300 Funston in San Francisco, CA, a former Christian Science Church

Mirror of the Internet Archive in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina

Wayback Machine logo

The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge".^[2][3] It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive was founded by Brewster Kahle in 1996. It is a member of the IIPC (International Internet Preservation Consortium).^[4]

With offices located in San Francisco, California, USA, and data centers in San Francisco, Redwood City, and Mountain View, California, USA, the Archive's largest collection is its web archive, "snapshots of the World Wide Web". To ensure the stability and endurance of the Internet Archive, its collection is mirrored at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt.^[5]

The Archive allows the public to both upload and download digital material to its data cluster, and provides unrestricted online access to that material at no cost. The Archive also oversees one of the world's largest book digitization projects. It is a member of the American Library Association and is officially recognized by the State of California as a library.^[6]

In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating for a free and open Internet.

The Archive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit operating in the United States. It has a staff of 200, most of whom are book scanners in its book scanning centers. Its main office in San Francisco houses about 30 employees. The Archive has an annual budget of $10 million, derived from a variety of sources: revenue from its Web crawling services, various partnerships, grants, donations, and the Kahle-Austin Foundation.^[7]

History[link]

Brewster Kahle founded the Archive in 1996 at the same time that he began the for-profit web crawling company Alexa Internet. The Archive began to archive the World Wide Web from 1996, but it did not make this collection available until 2001, when it developed the Wayback Machine. In late 1999, the Archive expanded its collections beyond the Web archive, beginning with the Prelinger Archive. Now the Internet Archive includes texts, audio, moving images, and software. It hosts a number of other projects: the NASA Images Archive, the contract crawling service Archive-It, and the wiki-editable library catalog and book information site Open Library. Recently, the Archive has begun working to provide specialized services relating to the information access needs of the print-disabled.

According to its website:

Most societies place importance on preserving artifacts of their culture and heritage. Without such artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. Our culture now produces more and more artifacts in digital form. The Archive's mission is to help preserve those artifacts and create an Internet library for researchers, historians, and scholars.

Wayback Machine[link]

The Internet Archive has capitalized on the popular use of the term "WABAC Machine" from a segment of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon, and uses the name "Wayback Machine" for its service that allows archives of the World Wide Web to be searched and accessed.^[8] This service allows users to see archived versions of web pages of the past, what the Internet Archive calls a "three dimensional index". Millions of websites and their associated data (images, source code, documents, etc.) are saved in a gigantic database. The service can be used to see what previous versions of websites used to look like, to grab original source code from websites that may no longer be directly available, or to visit websites that no longer even exist. Not all websites are available, however, because many website owners choose to exclude their sites. As with all sites based on data from web crawlers, the Internet Archive misses large areas of the web for a variety of other reasons. International biases have also been found in its coverage, although this does not seem to be the result of a deliberate policy.^[9]

The use of the term "Wayback Machine" in the context of the Internet Archive has become so common that "Wayback Machine" and "Internet Archive" are almost synonymous. This usage occurs in popular culture, e.g., in the television show Law and Order: Criminal Intent ("Legacy", first run Aug. 3, 2008), an extra playing a computer tech uses the "Wayback Machine" to find an archive of a student's Facebook style website. Snapshots usually take at least 6–18 months to be added.

Open Library[link]

The Open Library is another project of the Internet Archive. The site seeks to include a web page database for every book ever published, a sort of open source version of WorldCat. It holds 23 million catalog records of books, in addition to the full texts of about 1,600,000 public domain books, which are fully readable and downloadable.^[10][11] Open Library is a free/open source software project, with its source code freely available on the Open Library site.

Archive-It[link]

First deployed in early 2006, Archive-It is a web archiving service that allows institutions and individuals to build and preserve collections of digital content and create Digital Archives. Through a web application, Archive-It partners can harvest, catalog, manage, and browse their archived collections. Collections are hosted by the Internet Archive and are available to the public with full-text search. Content collected through Archive-It is stored with a primary and back-up copy, is periodically indexed into the Internet Archive's general archive, and a copy of the data can be sent to the partner institutions.

As of May 2011, Archive-It had over 180 partner institutions in 44 US States and 14 countries that have captured over 2.7 billion URLs for over 1534 public collections. Archive-It partners are universities and college libraries, state archives, federal institutions, museums, law libraries and cultural organizations, including the Electronic Literature Organization, North Carolina State Archives and Library, Stanford University, Columbia University, American University in Cairo, Georgetown Law Library and many others.

nasaimages.org[link]

NASA Images was created through a Space Act Agreement between the Internet Archive and NASA to bring public access to NASA's image, video, and audio collections in a single, searchable resource. The NASA Images team works closely with all of the NASA centers to keep adding to the ever-growing collection at nasaimages.org. The site launched in July 2008 and now has more than 100,000 items online.

Media collections[link]

In addition to web archives, the Internet Archive maintains extensive collections of digital media that are attested by the uploader to be in the public domain in the United States or licensed under a license that allows redistribution, such as Creative Commons licenses. The media are organized into collections by media type (moving images, audio, text, etc.), and into sub-collections by various criteria. Each of the main collections includes an "Open Source" sub-collection where general contributions by the public are stored.

Moving image collection[link]

Aside from feature films, IA's Moving Image collection includes: newsreels; classic cartoons; pro- and anti-war propaganda; Skip Elsheimer's "A.V. Geeks" collection; and ephemeral material from Prelinger Archives, such as advertising, educational and industrial films and amateur and home movie collections.

IA's Brick Films collection contains stop-motion animation filmed with Lego bricks, some of which are "remakes" of feature films. The Election 2004 collection is a non-partisan public resource for sharing video materials related to the 2004 United States Presidential Election. The Independent News collection includes sub-collections such as the Internet Archive's World At War competition from 2001, in which contestants created short films demonstrating "why access to history matters." Among their most-downloaded video files are eyewitness recordings of the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. The September 11th Television Archive contains archival footage from the world's major television networks of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 as they unfolded on live television.

Some of the films available on the Internet Archive are:

See also Wikipedia list of films freely available on the Internet Archive.

Audio collection[link]

The audio collection includes music, audio books, news broadcasts, old time radio shows and a wide variety of other audio files.

The Live Music Archive sub-collection includes over 100,000 concert recordings from independent artists, as well as more established artists and musical ensembles with permissive rules about recording their concerts such as the Grateful Dead, and more recently, The Smashing Pumpkins. Jordan Zevon has also allowed anyone to share concert recordings of his father Warren Zevon on the Internet Archive.

[edit] Netlabels

The Archive hosts freely distributable music via its Netlabels service.^[12]

Text collection[link]

Internet Archive book scanner

The texts collection includes digitized books from various libraries around the world as well as many special collections. The Internet Archive operates 23 scanning centers in five countries, digitizing about 1,000 books a day, financially supported by libraries and foundations.^[13] As of November 2008^[update], when there were about 1 million texts, the entire collection was over 0.5 petabytes, which includes raw camera images, cropped and skewed images, PDFs, and raw OCR data.^[14]

Between about 2006 and 2008 Microsoft Corporation had a special relationship with Internet Archive texts through its Live Search Books project, scanning over 300,000 books which were contributed to the collection, as well as financial support and scanning equipment. On May 23, 2008 Microsoft announced it would be ending the Live Book Search project and no longer scanning books.^[15] Microsoft made its scanned books available without contractual restriction and donated its scanning equipment to its former partners.^[15]

Around October 2007 Archive users began uploading public domain books from Google Book Search.^[16] As of May 2011 there were over 900,000 Google-digitized books in the Archive's collection, out of a total of 2.8 million books. The books are identical to the copies found on Google, except without the Google watermarks, and are available for unrestricted use and download, like all Internet Archive materials.^[17]

Physical media[link]

Voicing a strong reaction to the idea of books simply being thrown away, and inspired by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Kahle now envisions collecting one copy of every book ever published. "We're not going to get there, but that's our goal," he said. Alongside the books, Kahle plans to store the Internet Archive's old servers, which were replaced late last year.^[18]

Controversies and legal disputes[link]

Hate Speech Server for Al-Qaeda[link]

On August 17, 2011, Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI.org) published "Al-Qaeda, Jihadis Infest the San Francisco, California-Based 'Internet Archive' Library"^[19], which detailed how members can post anonymously and enjoy free uncensored hosting.

National Security Letter[link]

An NSL issued to the Internet Archive demanding information about a user

On May 8, 2008, it was revealed that the Internet Archive successfully challenged an FBI National Security Letter asking for logs on an undisclosed user.^[20][21]

Scientology[link]

In late 2002, the Internet Archive removed various sites critical of Scientology from the Wayback Machine.^[22] The error message stated that this was in response to a "request by the site owner."^[23] It was later clarified that lawyers from the Church of Scientology had demanded the removal and that the actual site owners did not want their material removed.^[24]

Healthcare Advocates, Inc.[link]

In 2003, Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey defended a client from a trademark dispute using the Archive's Wayback Machine. The lawyers were able to show that the plaintiff's claims were invalid based on the content of their web site from several years prior. The plaintiff, Healthcare Advocates, then amended their complaint to include the Internet Archive, accusing the organization of copyright infringement as well as violations of the DMCA and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Healthcare Advocates claimed that, since they had installed a robots.txt file on their website, even if after the initial lawsuit was filed, the Archive should have removed all previous copies of the plaintiff website from the Wayback Machine.^[25] The lawsuit was settled out of court.^[26]

Robots.txt is used as part of the Robots Exclusion Standard, a voluntary protocol the Internet Archive respects that disallows bots from indexing certain pages delineated by the creator as off-limits. As a result, the Internet Archive has rendered unavailable a number of websites that are now inaccessible through the Wayback Machine. Currently, the Internet Archive applies robots.txt rules retroactively; if a site blocks the Internet Archive, like Healthcare Advocates, any previously archived pages from the domain are also rendered unavailable. In cases of blocked sites, only the robots.txt file is archived.

However, the Internet Archive also states, "Sometimes a web site owner will contact us directly and ask us to stop crawling or archiving a site. We comply with these requests."^[27] In addition, the website says: "The Internet Archive is not interested in preserving or offering access to Web sites or other Internet documents of persons who do not want their materials in the collection."^[28]

Suzanne Shell[link]

On December 12, 2005, activist Suzanne Shell demanded Internet Archive pay her US$100,000 for archiving her website profane-justice.org between 1999 and 2004.^[29] Internet Archive filed a declaratory judgment action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on January 20, 2006, seeking a judicial determination that Internet Archive did not violate Shell’s copyright. Shell responded and brought a countersuit against Internet Archive for archiving her site, which she alleges is in violation of her terms of service.^[30] On February 13, 2007, a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Colorado dismissed all counterclaims except breach of contract.^[29] The Internet Archive did not move to dismiss copyright infringement claims Shell asserted arising out of its copying activities, which will also go forward.^[31]

On April 25, 2007, Internet Archive and Suzanne Shell jointly announced the settlement of their lawsuit. The Internet Archive said, “Internet Archive has no interest in including materials in the Wayback Machine of persons who do not wish to have their Web content archived. We recognize that Ms. Shell has a valid and enforceable copyright in her Web site and we regret that the inclusion of her Web site in the Wayback Machine resulted in this litigation. We are happy to have this case behind us.” Shell said, “I respect the historical value of Internet Archive’s goal. I never intended to interfere with that goal nor cause it any harm.”^[32]

Grateful Dead[link]

In November 2005, free downloads of Grateful Dead concerts were removed from the site. John Perry Barlow identified Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann as the instigators of the change, according to a New York Times article.^[33] Phil Lesh commented on the change in a November 30, 2005, posting to his personal website:

It was brought to my attention that all of the Grateful Dead shows were taken down from Archive.org right before Thanksgiving. I was not part of this decision making process and was not notified that the shows were to be pulled. I do feel that the music is the Grateful Dead's legacy and I hope that one way or another all of it is available for those who want it.^[34]

A November 30 forum post from Brewster Kahle summarized what appeared to be the compromise reached among the band members. Audience recordings could be downloaded or streamed, but soundboard recordings were to be available for streaming only. Concerts have since been re-added.^[35]

Opposition to Google Books Settlement[link]

The Internet Archive is a member of the Open Book Alliance, which has been among the most outspoken critics of the Google Book Settlement. The Archive advocates an alternative digital library project.

Opposition to S.O.P.A. and P.I.P.A.[link]

The Internet Archive blacked out its website for twelve hours on 18 January 2012 in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act, two pieces of pending legislation in the United States Congress that they claim will "negatively affect the ecosystem of web publishing that led to the emergence of the Internet Archive." This occurred in conjunction with the English Wikipedia blackout, as well as numerous other protests across the internet.^[36]

See also[link]

Similar projects[link]

• Internet Memory Foundation
• Library of Congress Digital Library project
• National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
• Ourmedia - Internet Archive project that freely hosts public image, text, audio, and video submissions
• Project Gutenberg
• UK Government Web Archive provided by The National Archives
• UK Web Archive provided by the British Library
• WebCite

Other[link]

• Digital preservation
• Heritrix
• Link rot
• Memory hole
• PetaBox
• Web archiving
• Web crawler
• Archive Team
• Digital Dark Age

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Kahle, Brewster, "Archiving the Internet", November 4, 1996
• Ringmar, Erik, "Liberate and Disseminate," Times Higher Education Supplement, April 10, 2008.

External links[link]

• The Internet Archive in California, United States
  • Internet Archive Mirror at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt
• Netlabels release collection
• The Other Minds Archive – New Music Resource from radiom.org
• Web Archiving at archive.org, details of Internet Archive operations
• Pictures and descriptions of the Wayback Machine hardware in 2003 (prior to the Petabox), with cost information
• Current Petabox storage hardware
• Earliest known website of Internet Archive (www.archive.org) from 1997
• Early websites from 1996

v t e Electronic books Formats BBeB ePub FictionBook LIT Mobipocket/Kindle PDF Plain text XMDF Reading Devices Alex Reader Bookeen computers COOL-ER Elonex ebook enTourage eDGe pocket eDGe eSlick FLEPia Hanlin eReader iRex iRiver Story Kindle Kobo Nook Oyo Plastic Logic Reader PocketBook eReader Qisda ES900 Samsung Papyrus smartphones SoftBook PAC-eBook 1 Sony Reader tablets Software Adobe Acrobat Adobe Digital Editions Aldiko Blio Bookglutton Calibre FBReader iBooks Lexcycle Stanza Sony Reader Library STDU Viewer Editing Adobe InDesign Atlantis Word Processor Feedbooks Sigil Sources Free Bookglutton Internet Archive Feedbooks Google Books Manybooks.net Project Gutenberg Wikisource Paid Amazon.com Barnes & Noble BooksOnBoard Booktrack Borders Feedbooks Fictionwise Google Books iBookstore Kobo Bookstore Sony Reader Store

Yu Dafu
Born	(1896-12-07)December 7, 1896 Fuyang, Zhejiang, China
Died	September 17, 1945(1945-09-17) (aged 48)
Occupation	Short Story writer and Poet

Yu Dafu (simplified Chinese: 郁达夫; traditional Chinese: 郁達夫; pinyin: Yù Dáfū; Wade–Giles: Yu Ta-fu) (December 7, 1896—September 17, 1945). Born in Fuyang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, was a modern Chinese short story writer and poet.

Early years[link]

Yu Dafu's father died when he was three, leaving the family poverty-stricken and destitute. He received a number of scholarships through the Chinese government and went on to receive a traditional Chinese education in Hangzhou. Chronologically he studied in Jiangxing-Fu Middle School (before he came to Hangzhou), Hangzhou-Fu Middle School, Yuying Academy^[1] (育英学堂, formerly of Zhejiang University).

In 1912, he entered Hangchow University (later its major part merged into Zhejiang University) preparatory through examination. He was there only for a short period before he was expelled for participation in a student strike.^[2]

He then moved to Japan, where he studied economics at the Tokyo Imperial University between 1913 and 1922, where he met other Chinese intellectuals (namely, Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping and Tian Han). Together, in 1921 they founded the Chuangzao she 創造社 ("Creation Society"), which promoted vernacular and modern literature. One of his earlier works Chenlun 沉淪, also his most famous, published in Japan in 1921. The work had gained immense popularity in China, shocking the world of Chinese literature with its frank dealing with sex, as well as grievances directed at the incompetence of Chinese government at the time.

In 1922, he returned to China as a literary celebrity and worked as the editor of Creation Quarterly, editing journals and writing short stories. In 1923, after an attack of tuberculosis, Yu Dafu directed his attention to the welfare of the masses.

In 1927, he worked as an editor of the Hongshui literary magazine. He later came in conflict with the Communist Party of China and fled back to Japan.

Second Sino-Japanese war[link]

After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese war, he returned to China and worked as a writer of anti-Japanese propaganda in Hangzhou, and later in Zhejiang. From 1938 to 1942, he worked as a literary editor for the newspaper Sin Chew Jit Poh in Singapore.

In 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Singapore, he was forced to flee to Sumatra. Known under a different identity, he settled there among other overseas Chinese and began a brewery business with the help of the locals. Later he was forced to help the Japanese military police as an interpreter when it was discovered that he was one of the few "locals" in the area who could speak Japanese.

In 1945, he was arrested by the Kempeitai when his true identity was finally discovered. It is believed that he was executed by the Japanese shortly after the surrender of Japan.

Works[link]

• Chenlun 沉淪 "Sinking" (1921)
• Riji jiuzhong 日記九種 “Nine Diaries” (1927)
• Guoqu 過去 “The Past" (1927)
• his first novel?? (1928) (moderately successful)
• his second novel?? (1932)
• Chuben 出奔 "Flight" (1935)

His most popular work, breaking all Chinese sales records, was Jih-chi chiu-chung "Nine Diaries", which detailed his affair with the writer Wang Ying-hsin. The most critically acclaimed work is Kuo-ch'u or "The Past", written in 1927.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

• Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, article- "Yü Ta-fu"

External links[link]

• Works by Yu Dafu at Project Gutenberg

Don Quixote
Title page of first edition (1605)
Author(s)	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Original title	El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote De la Mancha
Country	Spain
Language	Spanish
Genre(s)	Picaresco, satire, parody, farce
Publisher	Juan de la Cuesta
Publication date	1605 (Part One) 1615 (Part Two)
Published in English	1612 (Part One) 1620 (Part Two)
Media type	Print
Dewey Decimal	863
LC Classification	PQ6323

Don Quixote ( /ˌdɒn kiːˈhoʊtiː/; Spanish: [ˈdoŋ kiˈxote] ( listen)), fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha), is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique Earthy wit. He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like Intertextuality, Realism, Metatheatre and Literary Representation.

Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".

Plot[link]

Part 1[link]

The First Sally

Alonso Quijano, the protagonist of the novel, is a retired directioner nearing fifty years of age, living in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While mostly a rational man of sound reason, his reading of books of chivalry in excess has had a profound effect on him, leading to the distortion of his perception and the wavering of his mental faculties. In essence, he believes every word of these books of chivalry to be true though, for the most part, the content of these books is clearly fiction. Otherwise, his wits, in regards to everything other than chivalry, are intact. He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armour, renames himself "Don Quixote de la Mancha," and names his skinny horse "Rocinante". He designates a neighboring farm girl as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this.

He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, whom he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then dubs him a knight to be rid of him, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote next "frees" a young boy who is tied to a tree and beaten by his master by making his master swear on the chivalric code treat the boy fairly. The boy's beating is continued as soon as Quixote leaves. Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who "insult" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant.

The Second Sally

While Don Quixote is unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. After a short period of feigning health, Don Quixote approaches his neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The uneducated Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants. The two next encounter a group of friars accompanying a lady in a carriage. They are heavily cloaked, as is the lady, to protect themselves from the hot climate and dust on the road. Don Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who hold the lady captive. He knocks a friar from his horse, and is immediately challenged by an armed Basque travelling with the company. As he has no shield, the Basque uses a pillow to protect himself, which saves him when Don Quixote strikes him. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and demanding those travel with her to "surrender".

The Pastoral Wanderings

Sancho and Don Quixote go on, and fall in with a group of goatherds. Don Quixote tells Sancho and the goatherds about the "Golden Age" of man, reminiscent of both Ovid and the later Rousseau in which property does not exist, and men live in peace. The goatherds invite the Knight and Sancho to the funeral of Grisóstomo, once a student who left his studies to become a shepherd after reading Pastoral novels, seeking the shepherdess Marcela. At the funeral Marcela appears, delivering a long speech vindicating herself from the bitter verses written about her by Grisóstomo, claiming her own autonomy and freedom from expectations put on her by Pastoral clichés. She disappears into the woods, and Don Quixote and Sancho follow. Ultimately giving up, the two stop and dismount by a pond to rest. Some Galicians arrive to water their ponies, and Rocinante attempts to mate with them. The Galicians hit Rocinante with clubs to dissuade him, which Don Quixote takes as a threat and runs to defend Rocinante. The Galicians beat Don Quixote and Sancho leaving them in great pain.

The Adventures with Cardenio and Dorotea

After leaving the prisoners, The Knight and Sancho wander into the Sierra Morena, and there encounter the dejected Cardenio. Cardenio relates the first part of his story, in which he falls deeply in love with his childhood friend Luscinda, and is hired as the companion to the Duke's son, leading to his friendship with the Duke's younger son, Don Fernando. Cardenio confides in Don Fernando his love for Luscinda and the delays in their engagement, caused by Cardenio's desire to keep with tradition. After reading Cardenio's poems praising Luscinda, Don Fernando falls in love with her. Don Quixote interrupts when Cardenio suggests that his beloved may have become unfaithful after the formulaic stories of spurned lovers in Chivalric novels.

Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza, 1863, by Gustave Doré

In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote’s imagination into chivalrous quests. Don Quixote’s tendency to intervene violently in matters which do not concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost.

Part 2[link]

The Third Sally

Although the two parts are now normally published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. While Part One was mostly farcical, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception.

As Part Two begins, it is assumed that the literate classes of Spain have all read the first part of the history of Don Quixote and his squire. When they encounter the duo in person, a Duke and Duchess, and others, deceive Don Quixote for entertainment, setting forth a string of imagined adventures resulting in a series of practical jokes that put Don Quixote's sense of chivalry and his devotion to Dulcinea through many tests.

Even Sancho deceives him at one point. Pressured into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Don Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that their derelict appearance results from an enchantment. Sancho later gets his comeuppance for this when, as part of one of the duke and duchess's pranks, the two are led to believe that the only method to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself a surplus of three thousand lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets a governorship, though it be false, and proves to be a wise and practical ruler; though this, too, ends in humiliation.

Near the end, Don Quixote reluctantly sways towards sanity: an inn is just an inn, not a castle.

The lengthy untold "history" of Don Quixote's adventures in knight-errantry comes to a close after his battle with the Knight of the White Moon, in which we the readers find him conquered. Bound by the rules of chivalry, Don Quixote submits to prearranged terms that the vanquished is to obey the will of the conqueror, which in this case, is that Don Quixote is to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for the period of one year (a duration in which he may be cured of his madness). Defeated and dejected, he and Sancho start their journey home.

Part Two of Don Quixote is often regarded as the birth of modern literature, as it explores the concept of a character understanding that he is being written about. This is a theme much explored in writings of the 20th Century.

Upon returning to his village, Don Quixote announces his plan to retire to the countryside and live the pastoral existence of shepherd, although his housekeeper, who has a more realistic view of the hard life of a shepherd, urges him to stay home and tend to his own affairs. Soon after, he retires to his bed with a deathly illness, possibly brought on by melancholy over his defeats and humiliations. One day, he awakes from a dream having fully recovered his sanity. Sancho tries to restore his faith, but Alonso Quixano, for that is his true name, can only renounce his previous existence and apologize for the harm he has caused. He dictates his will, which includes a provision that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry. After Alonso Quixano dies, the author emphasizes that there are no more adventures to relate, and that any further books about Don Quixote would be spurious.

Themes[link]

Don Quixote by Honoré Daumier (1868)

The novel's structure is in episodic form. It is written in the picaresco style of the late sixteenth century, and features reference other picaresque novels including Lazarillo de Tormes and The Golden Ass. The full title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Spanish) means "quick with inventiveness".^[1] marking the transition of modern literature from Dramatic to thematic unity. The novel takes place over a long period of time, including many adventures all united by common themes of the nature of reality, reading, and dialogue in general.

Although the novel is farcical on the surface, the novel, especially in its second half, is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Quixote has served as an important thematic source not only in literature but in much of art and music, inspiring works by Pablo Picasso and Richard Strauss. The contrasts between the tall, thin, fancy-struck, and idealistic Quixote and the fat, squat, world-weary Panza is a motif echoed ever since the book’s publication, and Don Quixote's imaginings are the butt of outrageous and cruel practical jokes in the novel. Even faithful and simple Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at certain points. The novel is considered a satire of orthodoxy, veracity, and even nationalism. In going beyond mere storytelling to exploring the individualism of his characters, Cervantes helped move beyond the narrow literary conventions of the chivalric romance literature that he spoofed, which consists of straightforward retelling of a series of acts that redound to the knightly virtues of the hero.

From shepherds to tavern-owners and inn-keepers, the characterization in Don Quixote was groundbreaking. The character of Don Quixote became so well known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly adopted by many languages. Characters such as Sancho Panza and Don Quixote’s steed, Rocinante, are emblems of Western literary culture. The phrase "tilting at windmills" to describe an act of attacking imaginary enemies derives from an iconic scene in the book.

It stands in a unique position between medieval chivalric romance and the modern novel. The former consist of disconnected stories featuring the same characters and settings with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters. In Part I, Quixote imposes himself on his environment. By Part II, people know about him through "having read his adventures," and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has regained his sanity, and is once more "Alonso Quixano the Good".

When it was first published, Don Quixote was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution it was popular in part due to its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and seen as disenchanting—not comic at all. In the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on." Many critics came to view the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote's innate idealism and nobility are viewed by the world as insane, and are defeated and rendered useless by common reality. By the 20th century the novel had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature.

Background[link]

Sources[link]

Sources for Don Quixote include the Castillian novel Amadis de Gaula, which had enjoyed great popularity throughout the 16th century. Another prominent source, which Cervantes evidently admires more, is Tirant lo Blanch which the priest describes in Chapter VI of Quixote as "the best book in the world." The scene of the book burning gives us an excellent list of Cervantes's likes and dislikes about literature.

Cervantes makes a number of references to the Italian poem Orlando furioso. In chapter 10 of the first part of the novel, Don Quixote says he must take the magical helmet of Mambrino, an episode from Canto I of Orlando, and itself a reference to Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando innamorato.^[2] The interpolated story in chapter 33 of Part four of the First Part is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of Orlando, regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife.^[3]

Another important source appears to have been Apuleius's The Golden Ass, one of the earliest known novels, a picaresque from late classical antiquity. The wineskins episode near the end of the interpolated tale "The Curious Impertinent" in chapter 35 of the first part of Don Quixote is a clear reference to Apuleius, and recent scholarship suggests that the moral philosophy and the basic trajectory of Apuleius's novel are fundamental to Cervantes's program.^[4] Similarly, many of both Sancho's adventures in Part II and proverbs throughout are taken from popular Spanish and Italian folklore.

[edit] Spurious Second Part by Avellaneda

It is not certain when Cervantes began writing Part Two of Don Quixote, but he had probably not gotten much further than Chapter LIX by late July 1614. About September, however, a spurious Part Two, entitled Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licenciado (doctorate) Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, of Tordesillas, was published in Tarragona by an unidentified Aragonese who was an admirer of Lope de Vega, rival of Cervantes.^[5] Avellaneda's identity has been the subject of many theories, but there is no consensus as to who he was. In its prologue, the author gratuitously insulted Cervantes, who not surprisingly took offense and responded; the last half of Chapter LIX and most of the following chapters of Cervantes' Segunda Parte lend some insight into the effects upon him; Cervantes manages to work in some subtle digs at Avellaneda's own work, and in his preface to Part II, comes very near to criticizing Avellaneda directly.

In his introduction to The Portable Cervantes, Samuel Putnam, a noted translator of Cervantes' novel, calls Avellaneda's version "one of the most disgraceful performances in history".^[6]

The second part of Cervantes' Don Quixote, finished as a direct result of the Avellaneda book, has come to be regarded by some literary critics ^[7] as superior to the first part, because of its greater depth of characterization, its discussions, mostly between Quixote and Sancho, on diverse subjects, and its philosophical insights.

Other stories[link]

Don Quixote, his horse Rocinante and his squire Sancho Panza after an unsuccessful attack on a windmill. By Gustave Doré

Don Quixote, Part One contains a number of stories which do not directly involve the two main characters, but which are narrated by some of the picaresque figures encountered by the Don and Sancho during their travels. The longest and best known of these is "El Curioso Impertinente" (the impertinently curious man), found in Part One, Book Four. This story, read to a group of travelers at an inn, tells of a Florentine nobleman, Anselmo, who becomes obsessed with testing his wife's fidelity, and talks his close friend Lothario into attempting to seduce her, with disastrous results for all. In Part Two, the author acknowledges the criticism of his digressions in Part One and promises to concentrate the narrative on the central characters (although at one point he laments that his narrative muse has been constrained in this manner). Nevertheless, "Part Two" contains several back narratives related by peripheral characters.

Several abridged editions have been published which delete some or all of the extra tales in order to concentrate on the central narrative.^[8]

Style[link]

Spelling and pronunciation[link]

Cervantes wrote his work in a form of Old Castilian or Ladino, a Sephardic Jewish language derived from Hebrew and Aramaic and that became the medieval form of the Spanish language. The language of Don Quixote, although still containing archaisms, is far more understandable to modern Spanish readers than is, for instance, the completely medieval Spanish of the Poema de mio Cid, a kind of Spanish that is as different from Cervantes's language as Middle English is from Modern English. The Old Castilian language was also used to show the higher class that came with being a knight errant.

In Old Castilian the letter x represented the sound written with sh in modern English, so the name was originally pronounced "ki-SHOT-eh "[kiˈʃote]. However as Old Castilian became modern Spanish, the pronunciation of the sh sound changed, and came to be pronounced with a voiceless velar fricative sound like the Scottish or German ch and today the Spanish pronunciation of "Quixote" is ki-HO-teh [kiˈxote]. The original pronunciation is reflected in languages such as Astur-Leonese, Galician, Catalan, French, Italian and Portuguese that pronounce it with a "sh" or "ch" sound.

Today English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote (Quijote), as [dɒŋ kiːˈhoʊteɪ], although the traditional English spelling pronunciation pronouncing the name with the value of the letter x in modern English is still sometimes used, resulting in /ˈkwɪksət/ or /ˈkwɪksoʊt/. The traditional English rendering is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic, i.e., /kwɪkˈsoʊtɨk/ or /kwɪkˈsɒtɪk/, the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked with rash and lofty romantic ideals.^[9]

Setting[link]

Cervantes' story takes place on the plains of La Mancha, specifically the comarca of Campo de Montiel.

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing.

—Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Volume I, Chapter I

The location of the village to which Cervantes alludes in the opening sentence of Don Quixote has been the subject of debate since its publication over four centuries ago. Indeed, Cervantes deliberately omits the name of the village, giving an explanation in the final chapter:

Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentlemen of La Mancha, whose village Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended for Homer.

—Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Volume II, Chapter 74

In 2004, a multidisciplinary team of academics from Complutense University, led by Francisco Parra Luna, Manuel Fernández Nieto and Santiago Petschen Verdaguer, deduced that the village was that of Villanueva de los Infantes.^[10] Their findings were published in a paper titled "'El Quijote' como un sistema de distancias/tiempos: hacia la localización del lugar de la Mancha", which was later published as a book: El enigma resuelto del Quijote. The result was replicated in two subsequent investigations: "La determinación del lugar de la Mancha como problema estadístico" and "The Kinematics of the Quixote and the Identity of the 'Place in La Mancha'".^[11][12]

Language[link]

Because of its widespread influence, Don Quixote also helped cement the modern Spanish language. The opening sentence of the book created a classic Spanish cliché with the phrase "de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme" ("whose name I do not wish to recall"): "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor." ("In a village of La Mancha, whose name I do not wish to recall, there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen with a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound.")

The novel's farcical elements make use of punning and similar verbal playfulness. Character-naming in Don Quixote makes ample figural use of contradiction, inversion, and irony, such as the names Rocinante^[13] (a reversal) and Dulcinea (an allusion to illusion), and the word quixote itself, possibly a pun on quijada (jaw) but certainly cuixot (Catalan: thighs), a reference to a horse's rump.^[14] As a military term, the word quijote refers to cuisses, part of a full suit of plate armour protecting the thighs. The Spanish suffix -ote denotes the augmentative—for example, grande means large, but grandote means extra large. Following this example, Quixote would suggest 'The Great Quijano', a play on words that makes much sense in light of the character's delusions of grandeur. La Mancha is a region of Spain, but mancha (Spanish word) means spot, mark, stain, region and word are not etymologically related (from Arab origin the former, from Latin macula the latter), so "de La Mancha" (lit. both Stained Quixote and Quixote from La Mancha) is a hilarious name for a spotless knight.

Publication[link]

Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, at the Plaza de España in Madrid

In July 1604, Cervantes sold the rights of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (known as Don Quixote, Part I) to the publisher-bookseller Francisco de Robles for an unknown sum. License to publish was granted in September, the printing was finished in December, and the book came out on January 16, 1605.^[15][16] The novel was an immediate success. The majority of the 400 copies of the first edition were sent to the New World, with the publisher hoping to get a better price in the Americas.^[17] Although most of them disappeared in a shipwreck near La Havana, approximately 70 copies reached Lima, from where they were sent to Cuzco in the heart of the defunct Inca Empire.^[17]

No sooner was it in the hands of the public than preparations were made to issue derivative (pirated) editions. "Don Quixote" had been growing in favour, and its author's name was now known beyond the Pyrenees. By August 1605 there were two Madrid editions, two published in Lisbon, and one in Valencia. A second edition was produced with additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which publisher Francisco de Robles secured.^[18] Sale of these publishing rights deprived Cervantes of further financial profit on Part One. In 1607, an edition was printed in Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet demand with a third edition, a seventh publication in all, in 1608. Popularity of the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller issued an Italian edition in 1610. Yet another Brussels edition was called for in 1611.^[16] In total, the novel is believed to have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.^[19]

In 1613, Cervantes published the Novelas Ejemplares, dedicated to the Maecenas of the day, the Conde de Lemos. Eight and a half years after Part One had appeared, we get the first hint of a forthcoming Segunda Parte (Part Two). "You shall see shortly," Cervantes says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza."^[20] Don Quixote, Part Two, published by the same press as its predecessor, appeared late in 1615, and quickly reprinted in Brussels and Valencia (1616) and Lisbon (1617). Part two capitalizes on the potential of the first while developing and diversifying the material without sacrificing familiarity. Many people agree that it is richer and more profound. Parts One and Two were published as one edition in Barcelona in 1617. Historically, Cervantes's work has been said to have “smiled Spain’s chivalry away”, suggesting that Don Quixote as a chivalric satire contributed to the demise of Spanish Chivalry.^[21]

English editions in translation[link]

Don Quixote goes mad from his reading of books of chivalry. Engraving by Gustave Doré.

There are many translations of the book, and it has been adapted many times in shortened versions. Many derivative editions were also being written at the time, as was the custom of envious or unscrupulous writers. Seven years after the Parte Primera appeared, Don Quixote had been translated into French, German, Italian, and English, with the first French translation of 'Part II' appearing in 1618, and the first English translation in 1620. One abridged adaptation is authored by Agustín Sánchez, which runs slightly over 150 pages, cutting away about 750 pages.^{[22][dead link]}

Thomas Shelton's English translation of the First Part appeared in 1612. Shelton is a somewhat elusive figure: some claim Shelton was actually a friend of Cervantes, although there is no credible evidence to support this claim. Although Shelton's version is cherished by some, according to John Ormsby and Samuel Putnam, it was far from satisfactory as a carrying over of Cervantes's text.^[18] Shelton's translation of the novel's Second Part appeared in 1620.

Near the end of the 17th century, John Phillips, a nephew of poet John Milton, published what is considered by Putnam the worst English translated version. The translation, as literary critics claim, was not based on Cervantes' text but mostly upon a French work by Filleau de Saint-Martin and upon notes which Thomas Shelton had written previously. Around 1700, a version by Pierre Antoine Motteux appeared. Ormsby considered this version "worse than worthless". What future translator Samuel Putnam called "the prevailing slapstick quality of this work, especially where Sancho Panza is involved, the obtrusion of the obscene where it is found in the original, and the slurring of difficulties through omissions or expanding upon the text" all made the Motteux version irresponsible. In 1742, the Charles Jervas translation appeared, posthumously. Through a printer's error, it came to be known, and is still known, as "the Jarvis translation". The most scholarly and accurate English translation of the novel up to that time, it has been criticized by some as being too stiff. Nevertheless, it became the most frequently reprinted translation of the novel until about 1885. Another 18th century translation into English was that of Tobias Smollett, himself a novelist. Like the Jarvis translation, it continues to be reprinted today.

Most modern translators take as their model the 1885 translation by John Ormsby. It is said that his translation was the most honest of all translations, without expansions upon the text or changing of the proverbs.

In 1922, Arvid Paulson and Clayton Edwards published a now-forgotten expurgated children's version printed under the title The Story of Don Quixote which has nevertheless recently been published on Project Gutenberg. It retains as much of the text as it could while leaving out the risque sections as well as those chapters that young readers might consider dull, and embellishes a great deal on Cervantes's original text (the title page actually gives credit to the two translators as if they were the authors, and leaves out any mention of Cervantes).^[23]

The most widely read English-language translations of the mid-20th century are by Samuel Putnam (1949), J. M. Cohen (1950; Penguin Classics), and Walter Starkie (1957). The last English translation of the novel in the 20th century was by Burton Raffel, published in 1996. The 21st century has already seen three new translations of the novel into English. The first is by John D. Rutherford and the second by Edith Grossman. Reviewing the novel in the New York Times, Carlos Fuentes called Grossman's translation a "major literary achievement"^[24] and another called it the "most transparent and least impeded among more than a dozen English translations going back to the 17th century."^[25] In 2005, the year of the novel's 400th anniversary, Tom Lathrop published a new English translation of the novel, based on a lifetime of specialized study of the novel and its history.^[26]

See also[link]

	Novels portal
	Spain portal

• Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda – author of a spurious sequel to Don Quixote, which in turn is referenced in the actual sequel
• List of best-selling books
• List of Don Quixote characters
• List of works influenced by Don Quixote – including a gallery of paintings and illustrations
• The 100 Best Books of All Time
• Tirant lo Blanc – one of the chivalric novels frequently referenced by Don Quixote
• Amadis de Gaula – one of the chivalric novels found in the library of Don Quixote
• António José da Silva – writer of Vida do Grande Dom Quixote de la Mancha e do Gordo Sancho Pança (1733)
• Belianis – one of the chivalric novels found in the library of Don Quixote
• coco - In the last chapter, the epitaph of Don Quijote identifies him as el coco

References and sources[link]

Further reading[link]

• Bloom, Harold (Ed.) (2000) Cervantes's Don Quixote (Modern Critical Interpretations). Chelsea House Publishers ISBN 0-7910-5922-7
• D' Haen, Theo (Ed.) (2009) International Don Quixote. Editions Rodopi B.V. ISBN 90-420-2583-2
• Echevarría, Roberto González (Ed.) (2005) Cervantes' Don Quixote: a casebook Oxford University Press USA ISBN 0-19-516938-7
• Duran, Manuel and Rogg, Fay R. (2006) "Fighting Windmills: Encounters with Don Quixote". Yale University Press ISBN 978-0-300-11022-7
• Johnson, Carroll B (Ed.) (2006) Don Quijote Across Four Centuries: 1605–2005. Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic Monographs ISBN 1-58871-088-2
• Graf, E. C. (2007) Cervantes and Modernity: Four Essays on Don Quijote. Bucknell University Press ISBN 0-8387-5655-7

External links[link]

Find more about Don Quixote on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

• Don Quixote on In Our Time at the BBC. (listen now)
• Don Quixote, Volume 1 (volunteer-read audiobook) from LibriVox at Internet Archive.
• "One Master, Many Cervantes", by Ilan Stavans. A history of English translations. Humanities, September/October 2008. Volume 29, Number 5. Accessed 2010-08-04
• Works by Cervantes at Project Gutenberg
• The full text of Don Quijote in the original Spanish.
• Background information about Don Quijote and Cervantes

Jonathan Coulton
Background information
Born	(1970-12-01) December 1, 1970 (age 41)
Origin	Brooklyn, New York City
Genres	Folk rock, power pop, indie rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, banjo, ukulele, zendrum, tenori-on
Years active	2003–present
Associated acts	Paul and Storm Kristen Shirts John Hodgman Molly Lewis Ellen McLain Ze Frank RiffTrax They Might Be Giants
Website	http://www.jonathancoulton.com/

Jonathan Coulton (born December 1, 1970) is an American singer-songwriter, known for his songs about geek culture and his use of the Internet to draw fans. Among his most popular songs are "Code Monkey", "Re: Your Brains", "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone".

A former computer programmer employed at Cluen, a New York City software company^[1], and self-described geek, Coulton tends to write quirky, witty lyrics about science fiction and technology: a man who thinks in simian terms, a mad scientist who falls in love with one of his captives, and the dangers of bacteria. Rare topical songs include 2005's "W's Duty", which sampled President George W. Bush, and 2006's "Tom Cruise Crazy". Most of Coulton's recordings feature his singing over guitar, bass, and drums; some also feature the various other instruments Coulton plays, including accordion, harmonica, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, and glockenspiel.^[2]

Coulton graduated in 1993 from Yale, where he was a member of the Yale Whiffenpoofs^[3] and the Yale Spizzwinks(?). He is now the Contributing Troubadour at Popular Science magazine, whose September 2005 issue was accompanied by a five-song set by him called Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms.^[4] He was also the Musical Director for The Little Gray Book Lectures.^[5]

Career[link]

Coulton's best-known works include his light-acoustic cover of the Sir Mix-a-Lot hit song "Baby Got Back" and original pieces such as "Code Monkey", which was featured on Slashdot^[6] on April 23, 2006 and linked from the webcomic Penny Arcade.^[7] It was also the theme song for an animated show on G4 called Code Monkeys.

His work has been featured on NPR's All Things Considered. Good Morning Silicon Valley featured a link to a video set to his song "Re: Your Brains".

Coulton accompanied John Hodgman on his "700 Hobo Names" promotional track for Hodgman's book The Areas of My Expertise as the guitarist (he was credited as "Jonathan William Coulton, the Colchester Kid"). Coulton also can be heard throughout the audiobook version of the same book, playing the theme song to the book, playing incidental music, and bantering with Hodgman, who reads the audio version of his work. Hodgman has also mentioned Coulton on The Daily Show: a Jonathan Coulton of Colchester, Connecticut, was Hodgman's pick to win an essay contest on overpowering Iraqi resistance to American invasion.^[8] Coulton wrote and performed "the winning entry", a song about dropping snakes from airplanes. Coulton appeared on the tour for Hodgman's second book, More Information Than You Require.

Coulton composed the title music for the show Mystery Diagnosis, and also has contributed other songs under "The Little Gray Book Lectures", a series of audio releases from John Hodgman.

Coulton, Paul and Storm, and Molly Lewis performing at Dragon*Con 2011

In 2006, Coulton began touring with comedy-duo Paul and Storm. At their first few shows, Coulton opened the concerts, but soon after his rise to fame, he was headlining.

Coulton wrote and performed a song titled "Still Alive" for the ending credits of Valve's 2007 video game Portal, with vocals by Ellen McLain. On April 1, 2008, Harmonix made this track available as free downloadable content for the game Rock Band.^[9] A version with Coulton's vocals was also included on the Orange Box Original Soundtrack,^[10] in addition to the one heard at the end of the game. "Still Alive" has also made an appearance as an easter egg in Left 4 Dead 2.^[11] The song has been called "the most influential game music".^[12] In 2011, Coulton followed up the success of "Still Alive" with a new song at the end of Portal 2, "Want You Gone".

A DVD & CD of a concert performed February 22, 2008, at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, entitled Best. Concert. Ever. was released in 2009. At the concert, Coulton played the aforementioned song "Still Alive" on its Rock Band version, along with guest "musicians" and geek/celebrities Leo Laporte, Merlin Mann and Veronica Belmont.^[13]

Coulton opened for They Might Be Giants for a few shows of their March 2010 tour.^[14] He toured with them again in February 2012.

Coulton had been working on his follow-up to the Thing a Week albums, tentatively titled The Aftermath. It has since been stated that the title is merely an umbrella term to classify non-album tracks released after Thing a Week. On May 25, 2010, Coulton said on his official site that he would be working on a new album, to be produced by John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants,^[15] and for the first time ever with a full band, including Marty Beller of They Might Be Giants,^[16] in a professional recording studio. The resulting album: Artificial Heart, was released on September 2, 2011.

In May 2011, Coulton was interviewed on NPR's popular economics-related program Planet Money. He disclosed that he makes about $500,000 a year from his music despite lacking a record label contact. He expressed gratitude towards his fans for his surprise success, the degree of which he called "absurd". In a broader discussion of whether or not the internet is good for musicians, Coulton answered in the affirmative, while journalist Frannie Kelley described him as a "fluke" such as the Snuggie.^[17] Coulton posted a tongue-in-cheek response on his blog about the comparison, saying "to which I say: snarkity snark snark!"^[18]

Licensing[link]

Coulton releases his songs under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license, allowing others to use them in their own noncommercial works. As a result, a number of music videos have been created using his songs, including such machinima as the ILL Clan's video for "Code Monkey" and a kinetic typography video for the song "Shop Vac".^[19]

Thing a Week[link]

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (August 2011)

From September 16, 2005, to September 30, 2006, Coulton ran "Thing a Week", during which he recorded 52 musical pieces in an effort to push his creative envelope via a "forced-march approach to writing and recording"; to prove to himself that he could produce creative output to a deadline; and to see whether a professional artist could use the Internet and Creative Commons to support himself. Early indications are that the experiment succeeded in generating a large number of high quality songs, boosting sales of music downloads, expanding Coulton's public presence, and enlarging his fan base. The success of the financial objective is more difficult to judge, but Coulton was quoted in a September 2006 interview as stating that "in some parts of the country, I'd be making a decent living".^[20] In a February 25, 2008, interview with This Week in Tech, he stated that he made more money in 2007 than he did in his last year of working as a programmer, 40% of it from digital downloads and 40% from merchandise and performances.^[21]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Smoking Monkey (2003)
• Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow (2004)
• Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms (2005)
• Thing a Week One (2006)
• Thing a Week Two (2006)
• Thing a Week Three (2006)
• Thing a Week Four (2006)
• Artificial Heart (2011)

Compilations[link]

• JoCo Looks Back (2008)
• Best. Concert. Ever. (Live album - 2009)

Other releases[link]

• Other Experiments (Rarities Collection) (2005)
• Unplugged (Live on Second Life) (2006)
• The Orange Box Original Soundtrack (2007)
  • 1. "Still Alive" (Sung by Ellen McLain)
  • 19. "Still Alive" (Sung by Jonathan Coulton)
• The Aftermath (2009)
• Portal 2 Soundtrack: Songs to Test By - Volume 3 (2011)
  • 13. "Want You Gone" (Sung by Ellen McLain)

Most of Coulton's songs are published on his website as MP3 and FLAC downloads. Some of them are free, and none of them are subject to digital rights management. All of his original songs fall under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 3.0 License. "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone" are the only exceptions to this, as Coulton assigned all rights for the songs to Valve. Along with "Still Alive," Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains" appears in jukeboxes in Left 4 Dead 2. "Want You Gone" also features in the end credits of Portal 2. All three of these games were designed by Valve.^[22]

Other versions and covers[link]

Pianist Louis Durra recorded an instrumental trio version of "Code Monkey" released on "Mad World EP" and "Arrogant Doormats" (2011).

NES Rock Band I Fight Dragons covered "The Future Soon" on their "IFD Super Secret Exclusives" EP (2009).

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jonathan Coulton

• Official website
• Jonathan Coulton on Myspace
• Jonathan Coulton on Twitter
• Jonathan Coulton at the Internet Movie Database
• Jonathan Coulton at the Open Directory Project
• Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog, a profile of Jonathan Coulton in the New York Times Magazine dated May 13, 2007.