Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Title: The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha
Author : Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Trans: P.A. Motteux Engraver: Adolphe Lalauze OCLC: 679339012
Edition: published vol.1 – 1879, vol.2 1880, vol.3 1882, vol.4 1884 by William Paterson, Edinburgh. Printed by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh.
Physical Description: 24cm x17cm, Large 8ov
Vol. I: xlii + 445 pp.| π6 A-2G8 2H4 + 9 Plates
Vol. II: xii + 484 pp.|π6 A-2G8 2H2 + 9 Plates
Vol. III: xii + 512 pp. | π6 A-2I8 + 9 Plates
Vol. IV: xii + 508 pp. | π6 A8-2H8 I4 K2 + 10 Plates
Binding: Full Burgundy leather, with gilt titles on a six-compartment spine. There is gilt tooling on the inner edges of the boards and marbled end papers. All volumes have a bookplate for “Collingwood Lindsay Wood”. There is no fading to spines and apart from slight bumping to the corners of the boards and a little rubbing to the spines the covers are in excellent condition.
Condition: Some pages in all volumes are uncut. occasional minor foxing, very clean interior with no damage. All plates are tissue protected, though despite this some plates have bled slightly into the opposite pages.
Description: First published Part I in 1605; Part II in 1615 in Spanish (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha) Don Quixote chronicles the misadventures of Alonso Quixano, an aging minor nobleman who losing his grip on reality sets out to revive knighthood under the name “Don Quixote.” Armed with a makeshift suit of armour and accompanied by his squire, Sancho Panza, he confronts windmills mistaken for giants, inns imagined as castles, and various ordinary people and events refracted through the lens of his chivalric fantasy.
Told with a blend of comedy, tragedy, satire, and philosophical depth, Cervantes’ novel explores the tension between illusion and reality, idealism and disillusionment, and questions the nature of literature, authorship, and human identity.
Significance: Widely regarded as the first modern novel Don Quixote has become symbolic of noble folly and idealistic pursuit. The term “quixotic” is now embedded in the language as a tribute to the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.
