“REALIZES CERVANTES’ MANNER MORE NEARLY THAN ANY SUCCESSOR”: 1652 SECOND EDITION IN ENGLISH OF DON QUIXOTE, SHELTON’S FAMED TRANSLATION IN ONE VOLUME WITH GAYTON’S 1654 FESTIVOUS NOTES

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de. The History of The Valorous and Witty-Knight-Errant, Don-Quixote, Of the Mancha. Translated out of the Spanish; now newly Corrected and Amended [by Thomas Shelton]. BOUND WITH: [GAYTON, Edmund]. Festivous Notes Upon Don Quixot. London: by Richard Hodgkinsonne, for Andrew Crooke, 1652 / [William Hunt, 1654]. Small folio, contemporary full speckled brown calf rebacked and recornered, raised bands, gilt-lettered spine label, later endpapers.

Second edition of Thomas Shelton’s complete English translation—the second edition in English overall—of the first modern novel, “one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times” (PMM 111), this scarce edition handsomely bound in one folio volume with the first edition of Edmund Gayton’s 1654 important early commentary on the Shelton translation of Cervantes’ masterpiece.

“Under the guise of a parody on romances of chivalry, Cervantes created a study of reality and illusion, madness and sanity, that links him with such acute 16th-century students of psychology as Erasmus, Rabelais, Montaigne and Shakespeare” (Folger’s Choice 30). The first edition appeared in two parts in 1605 and 1614. Don Quixote first saw English translation in 1612 (the first part) and 1620 (the second part) by Thomas Shelton—indeed, “not only the first English translation, but the first translation in any language’ of Cervantes’ classic tale (Library of Robert Hoe 670). Shelton “reproduces in robust phraseology the spirit of his original, and realizes Cervantes’ manner more nearly than any successor” (DNB). This scarce second edition of Don Quixote is bound with the first edition of Edmund Gayton’s 1654 Pleasant or Festivous Notes upon Don Quixot, described by scholar E.M. Wilson as “a work of entertainment that took the form of a commentary…. [finding] the humorous side of the misadventures of Quixote and his Squire” (cited in Russell, Modern Language Review 64:2, 315). This is the first single-volume Shelton edition. First edition of Gayton’s Festivous Notes, without title page. Engraved ornamental title page symbols, initials, head- and tailpieces. Mispagination to several leaves without loss of text. Wing C1776. See Wing G415. Escuerdo 1155. Exposicion Conmemorativa del Quijote 303. Mas I:107, 104. Iconografia de las Ediciones del Quijote (English) 400. Owner signatures. Light contemporary marginalia.

Text generally quite fresh, expert archival repair to title page gutter edge and two leaves (I2, I3) without loss of text, contemporary calf very handsome. An exceptional copy of both works, rarely found together.