"THOSE ARE GIANTS; AND IF THOU ART AFRAID, AWAY WITH THEE… WHILE I ENGAGE THEM IN FIERCE AND UNEQUAL COMBAT"

CERVANTES sAAVEDRA, Miguel de. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. New York: Knight & Brown, 1901. Four volumes bound in eight. Octavo, 20th-century three-quarter red morocco, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut. $4500.

Limited edition, number 80 of only 100 sets, of this translation by John Ormsby of Cervantes' masterpiece, finely printed and bound, illustrated with frontispiece portrait and 51 plates after drawings by Cruikshank and Lalauze.

"It is interesting to realize that the first modern novel was composed by a sick, aged and impoverished man, who believed that a satirical tale might produce more revenue than the poems and plays that he regarded as his more serious mission. 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). This translation by John Ormsby was first published in 1885, and was the most popular and the most scholarly of the 19th century translations. This edition also includes Ormsby's lengthy introduction and multiple appendices by him.

Fine condition.