D a m i á n R o b l e s
Pictures taken by Damián Robles in courtesy of the Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library 05-07-2018 to 05-11-2018
Doing serendipitous research at the Folger Institute on the following items: 1612 & 1620 first editions of Thomas Shelton translations of Don Quixote. I conducted this research while I was taking a course entitled, «A Folger Orientation to Research Methods and Agendas», as part of a Folger Institute Grant-in-Aid. I was able to learn on the skills of handling rare books/ primary-text materials. In addition, I learnt about the book making and printing of the Early Modern period.
Item (1)
This is a 1612 first edition of Thomas Shelton English translation of Don Quixote Part 1. It was printed by William Stansby for Ed. Blount and W. Barret. Scholars such as James Fitzmaurice-Kelly (1906), Edwin B. Knowles Jr. (1941), to name a few, attributed this piece to be the first translation of Cervantes' work into a second language, the Early Modern English. These scholars state that Shelton used the Spanish Brussels edition (1607) when translated this work.
Item (2)
This is a 1620 first edition of Thomas Shelton English translation of Don Quixote, both Part 1 & 2. Again, their frontispieces say that this translation was printed by William Stansby for Ed. Blounte. This culminates the translation of the complete work into English, 1612 (part 1) and 1620 (re-print of part 1, and the translation and print of part 2). Fitzmaurice-Kelly (1906), Knowles (1941), Gerhard (1982) pointed out that the second part of the Early Modern English translation of Don Quixote followed the tradition of its translator, Thomas Shelton, of that of using a Brussels Spanish edition of Don Quixote (to be precise, the one of 1616).
Marginalia on these items: It was clearly through the marginalia presented that these items served a specific purpose. The one at the left, it is another language, Greek possible?, the middle item had passages from the Bible in correspondence with the content of the page. If you see on the notes of this reader, "thou" also appear, which presupposes a Early Modern reader stamping her or his mark on this book. The last image on the right it tells us about a reader that perhaps was a student since notes targeted specific translation of Spanish lexicon into French, perhaps a French reader from Brussels learning about El Quijote.
Text of origin and target text juxtapose: Although Shelton used a previous edition of the above "EN BRVCELAS" edition, the 1607. The above edition item (3), «El ingenioso hidalgo Don Qvixote de la Mancha», 1611, is a subsequent edition of the first Brussels Spanish edition of Part 1 of Don Quixote. On top of this edition, its the 1612 first edition of the English Don Quixote.
Other Cervantes' work: These last items (4), «Novelas exemplares» and (5), «Pleasant notes upon Don Quixot» are other pieces from the Folger collection of Cervantes' work and on Cervantes. For a full search, visit the Folger online catalog, Hamnet, and the Folger selected bibliography of Cervantes titles and materials.