Description
First edition of Tobias Smollett’s translation of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, complete with twenty-eight illustrated plates by Francis Hayman.
Quarto, [two volumes], xxviii, 403pp; viii, 466pp, [1 errata]. Full brown calf, thin double ruled gilt trim to covers. Five raised bands, decorative compartments, title in gilt over red morocco labels affixed to spine. Thread from bands visible along endpapers. Solid text blocks. A very good set with wear to covers, light rubbing to gilt on spines, toning to endpapers. Occasional foxing throughout. Complete with 28 full-page plates by Francis Hayman, including a detailed frontispiece in Volume I.
(ESTC T59887) (Ashbee 51) (RÃo y Rico 453)
A nice example of the seminal translation by Tobias Smollett.
Tobias Smollett’s translation of Don Quixote for the 1755 edition contributed much to the reappraisal later in the century of Cervantes as a patriot, a soldier, and a model of chivalry himself (Harthan, 153). “It is historically important, for it is one of the principal versions in which Cervantes’ novel was known to several generations of English and American readers” (Thomas Hart). Smollett completed the fifth English translation, preceded by Thomas Shelton (1612, 1620), John Phillips (1687), Peter Motteux (1700-03), and Charles Jervas (1742).
