Nouvelles avantures de l'admirable Don Quichotte de la Manche, composées Par le Licencié Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda

First of 2 volumes in 12mo. pp. [2] (blank), f. [1], pp. [14], 465, [3] (blank). Contemporary stiff vellum, titles in red and black, engraved frontispieces (printed on vellum) and eight engraved plates after Antoine Clouzier in each volume. Flyleaf inscribed ‘Ex Libris / S S Hamilton / Empt. Lug: Batt: [i.e. bought at Leiden] / Quinto nonas Mart. / MDCCVIIII’, verso of title ‘To Miss Jane Findlater / from her friend / Chas Findlater’. Includes printer's device on title page, headpieces. Faint armorial shelf-stamp on spine, incorporating the letter ‘G.’

The would-be pre-emptive sequel (1614, never reprinted) to Don Quixote, by an anonymous but personally hostile Aragonese contemporary of Cervantes, which provoked the latter into completing his own ‘segundo tomo’ (1615), ten years after the initial publication of his ‘Part I.’ This is an early reprint, with altered illustrations, of the first French translation (Paris, 1704) of the spurious ‘Segundo tomo del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote,’ by Alain René Lesage, dramatist and author of ‘Gil Blas’ and ‘Le diable boiteux.’ In his preface, Lesage speculates that the extreme rarity of his 1614 edition in Spain may reflect “les Partisans de Cervantes [qui] en ont brûlé la plus grande partie.” A. Palau (Manual del librero hispano-americano. 2nd edition. Barcelona, 1951, v. 5, 88047) points out that Lesage’s version is “más bien que ena traducción” – rather an adaptation, enlarging the original Spanish thirty-six chapters to seventy (although some of this is mere repositioning). In 1705, two additional editions were published: at Liège and at London and further editions and translations followed.

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