El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha.

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de.

$17,500.00

Item Number: 149255

Brussels: Por Roger Velpius, 1607.

Rare first Brussels edition and seventh edition overall of the first part of Cervantes’ unparalleled masterpiece, considered the most finely printed of the editions to date (from initial publication in Madrid in 1605 until this printing of 1607) and the edition that introduced the text to Northern Europe. Octavo, finely bound in full early mottled calf, morocco spine label lettered in gilt, elaborate gilt tooling to the spin in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, all edges speckled red. Don Quixote won immediate fame when first printed in 1605 for its ‘variety, liveliness, and gibes at the famous.’ Its subdued pathos and universal humanity have assured it a place as ‘one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times’ (PMM). It quickly went through numerous editions, translations, and piracies. This edition is the seventh overall, the first printed outside of the Iberian Peninsula, and the edition that introduced the text to Northern Europe. In very good condition. Lacking 13 leaves (X2, Z4-Z5, Gg2-Gg7, Nn8): three of dedicatory verses from the preliminaries, and 10 from the main text. Small autograph note dated 1909 with bibliographic comments affixed to front pastedown; two blank portions of title page repaired, *8 torn into text and neatly repaired, with no loss of text. A beautiful example of this very rare and significant edition of Cervantes’ masterpiece. Editions of Don Quixote printed during Cervantes’s lifetime are the crown jewel of Spanish book-collecting, as the four Folios of Shakespeare are to English book-collecting.

Cervantes, through his magnum opus Don Quixote, holds a place of unparalleled importance in the realm of literature. Chronicling the adventures of a hero who carries his enthusiasm and self-deception to unintentional and comic ends, Don Quixote is widely considered the first modern European novel, a classic of Western literature, and among the best works of fiction ever written. Cervantes’ influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called "la lengua de Cervantes." Don Quixote remains one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time. "The first part of Don Quixote came out in 1605... It was the variety, the liveliness, and the gibes at the famous, which won it instant fame... Within months Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had become legendary... Don Quixote is one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times, and there are very few who have not at one time or another felt themselves to be Don Quixote confronting the windmills of Sancho Panza at the inn" (PMM). For Cervantes and the readers of his day, Don Quixote was a one-volume book published in 1605, divided internally into four parts, not the first part of a two-part set. The mention in the 1605 book of further adventures yet to be told was totally conventional, does not indicate any authorial plans for a continuation, and was not taken seriously by the book's first readers. The second part, which is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception and "sophistry", was not published for a decade after the first part, in 1615, the year before Cervantes's death.