Cervantes, The history of Don Quixote, 1687, contemporary fine binding

Property of the Trustees of the Sandys Trust

PHILLIPS, JOHN--CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE

The history of the most renowned Don Quixote of Mancha: and his trusty squire Sancho Pancha. Now made English according to the humour of our modern language. And adorned with copper plates. By J.P. London: Thomas Hodgkin, to be sold by William Whitwood, 1687

folio (321 x 197mm.), engraved frontispiece, 7 (of 8) engraved plates, very fine contemporary red goatskin gilt probably by Robert Steel, concentric frames with sections of tooling encased by drawer-handle tools, some sections of tooling with black goatskin onlays, spine similarly gilt with black morocco onlays, gilt edges, lacking one plate, binding rubbed but sound

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. 

Phillips had previously translated Bartolomé de Las Casas Tears of the Indians into English (1656), as well as writing mock-romances of his own creation, such as Don Juan Lamberto (1660).

For an almost identical Steel binding see lot 61, Butler's Hudibras, a Restoration satire strongly influenced by Don Quixote. "Thus by adopting the genre of the chivalric romance, satirists like Butler and Phillips who appealed to an educated readership linked religious enthusiasm to the ignorant credulity of the lower class readers of chapbook romances" (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:

Lord Sandys, armorial bookplate

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