The History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant Don Quixote of the Mancha

This massive four-volume set reproduces the classic narrative of Alonso Quijano, a country gentleman who loses his mind from reading romances. Seeking to revive the dead code of chivalry, he adopts the persona of Don Quixote and enlists the illiterate farmer Sancho Panza to serve as his squire. The story follows their erratic travels through the Spanish countryside, where Quixote misinterprets windmills as giants and inns as castles. This specific edition uses Thomas Shelton’s seventeenth-century English translation, known for its archaic vigor, paired with the theatrical copperplate engravings of Charles-Antoine Coypel.

Scholars and bibliophiles read this edition to study the earliest English reception of Cervantes. The inclusion of Coypel's illustrations provides a visual record of how the knight's madness was staged and perceived during the eighteenth century. Readers finish these volumes with a technical understanding of the transition from medieval epic to the modern novel structure. They gain a specific familiarity with the linguistic quirks of the Tudor era and a visual history of one of literature’s most recognizable figures.

Deep, contemplative, open-ended and thought-provoking; a moderate read.

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