Cervantes, Don Quixote, London, 1687, later panelled calf

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The history ofthe most renowned Don Quixote of Mancha, and his trusty squire Sancho Pancha, now made English according to the humour of our modern language... by J[ohn] P[hillips]. London: Thomas Hodgkin, to be sold by John Newton, 1687

folio (326 x 197mm.), engraved frontispiece, 8 engraved plates (frontispiece and 2 plates included in collation), final leaf with errata at foot, eighteenth-century panelled calf, B1 torn and repaired with minimal loss, some leaves lightly soiled, covers detached

The first illustrated Don Quixote in English, in the translation of John Phillips, Milton's nephew, continuing Milton's disenchantment with chivalric and popular romances. Phillips' translation moves English slang and satire to the Iberian peninsula, to the horror of his contemporaries ("the Language of Billingsgate into the Mouths of Spanish Ladies and Noblemen"); although the illustrations were reused for later English editions, Phillips' text was never reprinted. His version of Cervantes in "the humour of our modern language" (such as "Knighthoods and Shitehoods" and providing Don Quixote with a dose of the clap) seemed too strong for the reading public (Anna Nardo, "John Phillips, John Milton, "Don Quixote", and the disenchantment of Romance", Mosaic 47, 169-186, p.175).

LITERATURE:

ESTC R8126; Wing C1774

PROVENANCE:

Baptist, earl of Gainsborough, inscription dated 1697 on flyleaf; Jane Proby, early signature on title-page; Susanna Proby, the gift of her cousin Lord Carysford [Carysfort], inscription dated 1737 on flyleaf