Paris, por Gilles Robinot, 1611.
8vo of (8) ll., 475 pp. (the last one misnumbered 47). Limp vellum, handwritten title on the spine. Contemporary binding.
160 x 107 mm.
First edition of Galatea printed outside the Iberian peninsula and second edition, very rare of Cervantes’ first work, the only one you can hope to find on the market. The original of 1585 is even rarer than the first of don Quixote, published in 1605, Cervantes being then an unknown writer.
Galatea is a pastoral novel in prose and verse.
“The imagination of Cervantes offers us a world of ideal beauty that takes the name and face of Galatea: but it is a world whose secret essence is love, a natural inclination that exalts and carries us away. The shepherds Elicio and Erastro, both in love with the “sin by Galatea”, sing over and over again of their love for the beautiful shepherdess, glory of the Tagus, who, destined by her father to marry a rich Portuguese shepherd, promises herself instead to Elicio, if the latter helps her to escape from her father’s will.
Platonism borrowed from Leo the Hebrew, elegance in the style of Bembo and Castiglione, predilection for preciousness and complication of feelings are the characteristics of Galatea, which is still impregnated with the Baroque taste. This book remained dear to Cervantes; he gave it a special place in the famous examination of Don Quixote’s library and even announced, in the dedication of the Works of Persimmon and Sigismunda to the Count of Lemos, that he would give a sequel; finally, on his deathbed, he still promised himself to finish it if a miracle kept him alive.”
Since the beginning of the international public sales reports (A.B.P.C.), no copies of the 1585 edition has come onto the market and there was only one copy of the second edition in a contemporary vellum binding, sold by Sotheby’s New York in 2000.
A precious copy of the author’s favorite work, preserved in its contemporary vellum binding.
