I have an essay in the current issue of the Internet Review of Science Fiction. In "From Best-Seller to Oblivion: A Renaissance Literary Phenomenon" I tell how the novel Amadis of Gaul became Europe's first publishing mega-hit in the 1500s, and how and why it was forgotten.

I argue that Don Quixote de La Mancha did not cause its fall from grace. Fans of novels of chivalry enjoyed Cervantes' contribution to the genre, and they remained loyal readers. Instead, political attacks and bans on chivalric novels eventually eliminated them from respectable bookshelves.

Read the essay at:
http://www.irosf.com/

— Sue Burke