Barcelona, en casa de Sebastian Matevat, Ano 1617.
Small 8vo [145 x 97 mm] of : (1) bl.l., (6) ll., 357 ll. and (4) ll. of table, (1) bl.l. Small hole in the blank margin of p. 86, tiny wormhole in the blank lower margin of ll. 130 to 138. Full overlapping ivory vellum binding, spine with two raised bands, « Ingenioso Cavallero » handwritten in brown ink, sprinkled edges. Contemporary binding.
“Exceedingly rare edition, the first gathering the two parts printed in the same city and at the same date.
Navarette only knew the second volume of it and Salva maintains the only complete copy he saw was his own copy” (Ricardo Hérédia, n°2518).
Ricardo Hérédia, n°2518 ; Salva, n°2654 ; Palau, 51989 ; Brunet, I, 1749 ; Graesse, II, 106 ; Rahir, Bibliothèque de l’amateur, 360.
Salva’s copy was in a much later binding.
First edition from Barcelona of the second part of Don Quixote published two years after the first one of Madrid.
At all times both parts of Don Quixote have been sold separately. It is explained by the ten years that separate the publication of both parts and by the small run of copies.
The second part of Don Quixote is far more than a sequel, it is a book complete in itself, which is in a way “the illustration, the interpretation and the conclusion of the first part”. The international success of the first part encouraged Cervantes to produce a new masterpiece.
This edition is described in the most complete collection of Cervantes works gathered in the 19th century, by Ricardo Hérédia, whose auction was held in Paris in 1892. He owned the first 10 editions of the first part, the first edition of Madrid of the second part, published in 1615, 2 copies of the second edition printed in Brussels in 1616, and then the edition of Barcelona, 1617, but in a much later binding.
“Within months Don Quichotte and Sancho Panza had become legendary. Don Quichotte is one of those universal books which are read by all ages at all times. » (PMM).
Salva, Cervantes’ bibliographer, considers the first edition of the second part of 1615 as “much rarer than the first of 1605”.
This first Barcelona edition of 1617 is as rare as the first of 1615.
The first edition of Don Quixote is, with the one of Shakespeare, the most sought-after among worldwide literature.
A copy of the second part alone of Don Quixote, printed in Madrid in 1615, preserved in its original vellum binding, was knocked down for 600 000 € on the 7th of December 2000 by Sotheby’s, 15 years ago.
A superb copy, very pure, preserved in its original vellum binding.
