Histoire de l’admirable Don Quichotte de la Manche

Cervantes, Miguel de. The History of the Admirable Don Quixote of La Mancha.
6 volumes in-12.

Novels by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, New Edition. Expanded with three Novels that had not yet been translated into French & with the Life of the Author. Enriched with engraved illustrations.
2 volumes in-12.

Amsterdam and Leipzig. Arkstée & Merkus, 1768.

Set of 8 volumes in-12. Green morocco, gilt roll frame on covers, smooth spines finely decorated with solid and dotted fillets forming false bands and gilt fleurons, gilt roll on the edges, inner gilt roll, gilt edges. Binding of the period.

177 x 108 mm.

Partly original edition, one of the main and best of the 18th century.

“Cervantes, in the eyes of a posterity that has never ceased to be amazed, is the creator of two human archetypes born from pure imagination and become more alive than any historical character, to the point that they have entered everyday language and universal folklore, and that they embody not only a country or an era, but a whole world. There is nothing wrong with Don Quixote and Sancho now being puppets children play with. Cervantes first intended them as buffoons and figures of ridicule. His book is essentially a burlesque satire of the chivalric romances so popular in his time. What is admirable is that, over the course of his narrative, he poured into it, without system, an entire vital experience, and a philosophy of existence that penetrates deep into dreams and delusions. Not only are the dialogues between knight and squire the source of an ineffable comedy, but Don Quixote leaning down to Sancho, and Sancho looking up to Don Quixote, both undergo an intimate transformation, their souls refined by contact with realities and with a dream stronger than truth. One can say the modern novel derives from this archetype; one can also claim that, through this work imbued with humor, Cervantes is one of those who, in that fruitful 16th century, like Montaigne, Shakespeare or Erasmus, undertook the subtlest exploration of the depths of the human mind. In Don Quixote one finds a theory of knowledge as beautiful as in Calderón’s “Life is a Dream.”

“Two men of letters, Rabelais and Miguel Cervantes, rose up, one in France and the other in Spain, and at the same time shook both the monastic power and that of chivalry. To overthrow these two pillars, they used no other weapons than ridicule, that natural contrast to human terror.” (Bernardin de Saint-Pierre)” (Jean Barbelon).

This edition of Don Quixote is illustrated with 31 full-page engravings by Fokke and Folkéma, 1 portrait after Kent at the head of the Novellas, a frontispiece engraving and 6 title vignettes. This series of engravings is based on the set of 31 quarto-sized prints engraved by Picard, Tanjé, Stokke and J. Van Schley after drawings by Coypel, Boucher and Trémolière in 1746, which defined the iconography of the work for about a century. Here they are reinterpreted in octavo format.

The Novellas are adorned with 13 first-edition prints drawn and engraved by Folkéma, specially for this edition in a state before lettering.

All of these 44 engravings form the most important and best-known work of the artist. (Cohen, Guide de l'amateur de livres à gravures, 217-218).

“Born in Dokkum, Friesland, in 1692, Folkéma learned engraving from his father and settled in Amsterdam where he died in 1767.

His best-known work is his octavo reduction of Charles Coypel’s figures for “The Adventures of Don Quixote,” executed with Fokke for the 1768 edition.” (Portalis, Les Dessinateurs d'illustrations au XVIIIe siècle, pp. 214-215).

Large-margined copy bound in particularly elegant contemporary green morocco.