Salvador Dalí was no stranger to literary illustration, from his heliogravures for Alice in Wonderland to his drawings for Montaigne’s essays. But arguably his most elegant take on a literary classic comes from this rare 1946 edition of Don Quixote De La Mancha (public library) by Miguel de Cervantes. (Cervantes’s exact birthday remains uncertain — September 29, 1547 is the commonly agreed upon date, but there are no surviving birth records; the only official record is that of his baptism on October 9, 1547.)

Scrumptiously surrealist, Dalí’s drawings — a combination of black-and-white sketches and watercolors — are the best visual take on the Cervantes classic since Spanish graphic design pioneer Roc Riera Rojas’s 1969 illustrations.

Complement with Dalí’s 1967 illustrations of the signs of the zodiac, then dive further into the canon of exceptional cross-pollinations of great art and great literature, including Maurice Sendak’s rare and formative art for William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence,” William Blake’s paintings for Milton’s Paradise Lost, Picasso’s 1934 drawings for a naughty ancient Greek comedy, Matisse’s 1935 etchings for Ulysses, and Ralph Steadman’s magnificent take on Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Thanks, Wendy