A splendid copy of the rare third Madrid edition, the best printed by Cuesta, of the first part of Cervantes’s masterpiece. Widely believed to have been revised by the author - who was living “two steps away from the printing shop” (Rico, p. xcii) - this text contains additions and alterations of fundamental importance for the modern critical editions.
Don Quixote is a landmark of Western literature and one of the most-translated books in the world. “The first part of Don Quixote came out in 1605. ... It was the variety, the liveliness, and the gibes at the famous, which won it instant fame. ... Within months Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had become legendary ... Don Quixote is one of those universal works which are read by all ages at all times, and there are very few who have not at one time or another felt themselves to be Don Quixote confronting the windmills of Sancho Panza at the inn” (PMM).
For Cervantes and the readers of his day, Don Quixote was a one-volume book published in 1605, divided internally into four parts, not the first part of a two-part set. The mention in the 1605 book of further adventures yet to be told was totally conventional, does not indicate any authorial plans for a continuation, and was not taken seriously by the book's first readers. The second part, which is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception and "sophistry", was not published for a decade after the first part, in 1615, the year before Cervantes’s death.
Provenance: a) Kirkman Daniel Hodgson (1814-1879), British banker, partner in the mercantile firm Baring Brothers and Co. (Barings Bank), then governor of the Bank of England and Member of Parliament; with his bookplate. An inscription on the recto of the front free endpaper indicates that this volume was gifted by “R.K.H.”, highly likely Daniel’s son Robert Kirkman Hodgson (c.1850-1924), to “J.B.”, presumably John Baring, second Baron Ravelstoke (1863-1929), on 16 January 1895; from 1890, Robert and John were partner-directors of Barings Bank. The dedication ends with the Latin sentence: “A little book from the library of the son”; b) The Newberry Library, with book plate and deaccession label; c) Karl Tilden Keller (1872-1955), American businessman, Harvard College graduate (AB 1894), and collector of rare books and objects relating to Don Quixote; with his bookplate; d) Offered by Keller as a gift to the Harvard College Library; with bookplate and deaccession stamp of the Library.