Books

London: Printed by Tho. Hodgkin, and are to be sold by John Newton, 1687. Hardcover. Very good. First Illustrated Edition in English. Folio. 18], 616 [i.e. 612], [3] pp. A7 (3rd and 6th l. signed: A2), c2, B-R4, S3, T-2O4, 2P3, 2Q-4I4, 4K2. Translated by John Phillips. With copper-engraved frontispiece & 8 copper-engraved plates, each bearing two images. 19th century full calf, spine tooled & lettered in gilt, gilt inner dentelles; bound by J. Larkin. Plain endpapers. A very good copy. Light rubbing to the calf, frontispiece and title page expertly and nearly invisibly inlaid in paper frames with no loss of text, two of the plates with fore-edges remargined; minor, mostly marginal, foxing and soiling within. Overall a very attractive copy in a lovely example of the binder's art. Laid in are two 19th century manuscript notes from the Rev. Samuel Martin Mayhew of St. Paul's Vicarage to a Mr. Hopkins discussing the volume and translation. .

"Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes is a seminal work in Western literature, often regarded as the first modern novel. Published in two parts, the first in 1605 and the second in 1615, it tells the story of Alonso Quixano, a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalric romances of the Middle Ages, he loses his sanity and decides to become a knight-errant, renaming himself Don Quixote. He chooses a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, promising him the governorship of an island. The duo embarks on a series of adventures, with Don Quixote seeking to right wrongs and bring justice to the world, driven by his absurdly outdated moral code and understanding of reality. The novel is famous for its satirical examination of the discrepancy between Quixote's fantasy world and the actual world of 17th-century Spain. This theme is most famously illustrated in the episode where Don Quixote fights windmills, mistaking them for giant monsters. Throughout their journeys, the pair encounters thieves, prostitutes, a chain gang, and various other characters, often causing more harm than good in their attempts to help. "Don Quixote" explores themes of truth and justice, the transition from the old world to the new, and the idea of madness versus sanity. Cervantes employs a narrative structure that includes stories within stories, allowing him to critique the social and literary conventions of his time. The novel has had a profound influence on the development of prose fiction and is considered a precursor to the modern novel. It is celebrated for its humor, moral integrity, and its deep humanity, offering a complex reflection on the nature of reality and the importance of empathy.