July, 2026

Over the centuries, Spain has had reason to celebrate many victories. While the most recent is its Football World Cup win, perhaps more enduring is its claim to have produced the world’s first novel.

Miguel de Cervantes published his great work El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, or The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, in two volumes in 1605 and 1615. A satire of chivalrous romances, this work has been one of the most translated in modern literature, and regarded as a founding work in Western literature. 

Cervantes’ life is itself the story of a romance. Born in 1547, he moved to Rome in 1569, fought for Spain in the battle of Lepanto in 1571, losing the use of his left arm, and was captured by Barbary pirates and held captive for 5 years. He died in Madrid in 1616, a year after the publication of the second volume of Don Quixote, and in the same year as his great contemporary, William Shakespeare.

Don Quixote still gets published right through to the present day. One of the most notable of recent years is that by the Nonesuch Press in 1930, and we have a copy for sale, bound in full morocco in the original marbled box, with 21 illustrations.

We also have a fine earlier Spanish edition from 1797. This is the personal copy of Colonel Sir William Robe, with his signature on each title page: "Wm. Robe, R. Artillery, Madrid, August 1812". This was the year in the Napoleonic Peninsular War that the allied armies defeated the French at Salamanca, and took Madrid. Robe commanded the Royal Artillery on their entry into Madrid following the victory at Salamanca in July 1812. On the verso of the title page of Vol.1, Robe has written in ink, a poem with a clever take on his name: An Old Soldier's Wish Let me be Robed as here I write True courage's scarlet hue, Virtue and Honor's purest White, And loyalty's true Blue. Let mental improvement for lace on it shine And Me have the right to say That Robe is Mine.