Salvador Dal illustrated Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote for the first time while living in exile in the United States in the 1940s, collaborating with Random House to produce a special edition that was published in 1946. Quixotic Quests examines the material history of this 1946 edition by bridging art history, book history, literature, and narratology, while exploring Dal's role as its illustrator and the reception of both by mid-century popular culture, art historians, and literary scholars.

Positing that much of Dal's life was quixotic in nature, the book investigates his quest to illustrate the novel with an unprecedented level of pictorial didacticism, despite challenges that the artist and Random House faced during and after the Second World War. It details his resolute passion to integrate surrealism with classicism, visual art with narrative, sexuality with sublimation, and privacy with public persona. Contrasting Dal's visual achievements with other artists and stylistic movements, Quixotic Quests sheds new light on the niche that Dal created for himself as a surrealist illustrator of Don Quixote. Consulting his autobiographical narratives, the book analyses Dal's unique artistic contributions to the four-hundred-year print history of the novel, while emphasizing the artist's heartfelt appreciation and respect for his book illustrations.