CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de.
The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant, Don Quixote.
London: Edward Blount , 1620.
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Rare first complete English edition, being two parts bound together in a contemporary calf binding. The first part of Don Quixote was originally published in Spanish in 1605 and translated into English in 1612. The second part was published in 1614 and translated into English in 1620 and published again with part one. This edition is the first time the book appeared in full in any language other than Spanish, comprising the second edition in English of part one, and the first edition in English of part two. Thick octavo in very good condition. Lacking initial blank and engraved title in part one (there was no printed title). Lacking the added engraved title in part two (with printed title present); lacking leaf C7 (pp.29-30) in part two; lacking K4 (a blank) in part two. Some rubbing and wear to binding, some soiling and aging to contents, but overall fairly moderate. Translated by Thomas Shelton, who has been said to reproduce Cervantes' racy, spirited manner more closely than any other to follow. Housed in a custom quarter calf clamshell box. Exceptionally rare, especially so in period binding.
Don Quixote tells the tale of a man so entranced by reading about the chivalrous romantic ideals touted in books that he decides to take up his sword and become a knight-errant himself, with the aims of defending the helpless and warding off the wicked. With his somewhat confused laborer-turned-squire, Sancho Panza, they roam the world together and have adventures that have haunted reader's imaginations for nearly four hundred years. Don Quixote is generally recognized as the first modern novel. Over those years, it has had an incredible influence on thousands of writers, from Dickens to Faulkner, who once said he reread it once a year, "just as some people read the Bible". Vladamir Nabokov is quoted as saying, "Don Quixote is greater today than he was in Cervantes's womb. [He] looms so wonderfully above the skyline of literature, a gaunt giant on a lean nag, that the book lives and will live through [his] sheer vitality... He stands for everything that is gentle, forlorn, pure, unselfish, and gallant. The parody has become a paragon."
The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant, Don Quixote.
$30,000.00
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