Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a soldier, novelist, poet and dramatist. He is believed to have been born on 29 September 1547 in Alcalá de Henares, and he died on the 22 April 1616 in Madrid. He is universally celebrated, primarily for having written The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha, which many critics have described as the first modern novel, and one of the finest works of universal literature. He has been given the epithet Prince of Wits.