Vida y hechos del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Compuesta por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Londres : por J. y R. Tonson, 1738. Classmark: Ee.4.1

This is the first edition in Spanish published in England, and the first ever critical edition. It was commissioned by the statesman Lord Carteret, a keen lover of the classics who was also renowned for his knowledge of modern languages and literature. Allegedly, when Carteret visited the wife of wife of King George II, Queen Caroline, ’s new palace in Richmond in 1735, he noticed that there was no copy of Don Quixote, and determined to provide a deluxe edition of the Spanish text. It contained the first ever biography of Cervantes, by Gregorio Mayans, and splendid illustrations by John Vanderbank (others had been prepared by Hogarth but were rejected by the editors).